Flip

Dropout is actually becoming the most annoying poster on here...

No they were brought in by Martinez (at least Diame, McCarthy, McArthur, Moses, Di Santo) were.

I never said a lack resources, I said a lack of attractiveness. As for Swansea he made them what they are, as for Reading they have spent pretty good lately and for Norwich they have had a good run of games which saw them climb the table, but there's no doubt in my mind that they'll be finishing around the bottom of the table along with the likes of Wigan, Reading, QPR and so on.

The key issue there is we have replaced them with far more talented players and we have the ability to attract better players. Also you have to take wages into consideration. There is no way Wigan can throw about the same salaries as we can. Also until a week ago we were behind Wigan, but like I said I think he is trying to implement a style of football that just doesn't work, but which will set a foundation for the club in the future if the next hiring sees the way he does. He never promoted Swansea, but he is still credited for the way they play. I think he's done a very good job at Wigan, if he's good enough to take a team like us to the next level I'll leave unsaid. I just find peoples opinion of him respectable for what he has achieved at Wigan.

I do agree to a certain extent that Martinez is overrated, but not because of the reasons you suggested. Martinez while having some resources has not had the stability to build a foundation of a club. He is trying to implement a type of football which he has proven to have become a successful doing at Swansea. Martinez came into the club having sold Valencia and Cattermole who were integral parts of the Steve Bruce team that finished midtable during his season. He brought in Moses, McCarthy, and Diame all young players at the time and all who have gone on to become good players. He obviously spent quite a lot on couple of players, but a club like Wigan cannot attract the best and he has to try and implement his style of football by buying pretty average players at a higher sum to convince them to join his club. It's not easy to build a team when you every season have to sell your best performer. You then have to go and spend to try and make your team better which isn't always easy. We sold Carroll but got lucky to sign Ba, is that because Pardew is a great manager? Or is it because Carr is a good scout? Or was it because West Ham were dumb enough to give him that contract which let him go for free and we were willing to pay his agents an amazing fee? In other words, I'm somewhere in the middle between this Martinez yes or no question. I just don't find calling him overrated based on evidence of his time at Wigan or the squad he has built good enough. If you don't have a good organizational structure at the club and a great city and fans to support it you will never be the best. Keeping Wigan as a PL team for three seasons now has been a very good achievement. If he would succeed at our club I don't know. What I do know though, is that his team plays one of the more fun styles of football in the league and that is with players such as Caldwell, Beausejour (which he signed after a very good World Cup but has been unable to settle) etc. He is setting a foundation at Wigan, but Wigan as a club can have Mourinho as a manager or Sir Alex for all I care. They will never establish as a top half team in the league. It's hard enough for a club like Newcastle who can attract a lot of good players.

If you can afford the Royal Penthouse Suite then you can afford to pay 22 hookers to come and act it out for you, using lines of cocaine to mark out the pitch and goalposts made of ivory.

Cabayes tackle was terrible, but it wasn't malicious so a retrospective ban would've been terrible. I just think by the time it happened the whole team was sloppy in challenges, possession, we just had no more gas to run on. So his challenge was late, but it wasn't malicious. Those types of tackles happens late in the game, and Cabaye and especially Sissoko looked knackered.

Was pace really our most significant attribute?

Jonas was nowhere near as bad last season as this one.

You don't need the best to stay in the Premier League though. None of those clubs I mentioned have attracted "the best" and the likes of West Brom have spent absolute bloody peanuts, but spent it so much better and used the players better. Fair enough, what I meant though is that how is he supposed to build a team when Wigan has a history of selling their best players every summer? Valencia, N'Zogbia, Moses and the list goes on. He has to restart and reintegrate a whole new squad every season. Stoke doesn't have to as they rely on players like Crouch, Huth and Shawcross who no one wants anyways but who are decent enough to keep the club in the top 75% in the league.

I'd say 7th. The top 6 teams have better squads, but I don't think the Merseyside teams have better squad. Liverpool as Suarez but the rest of their team isn't that good tbf.

It's not a great job, but it's also a matter of inheriting a shit squad and having to sell his best players as soon as they flourished and also I think it's been proven under us that you need a good scouting system in place to get the best players. He has had to go get players from outside who have had a difficulty adapting to Wigan as well as not being able to attract the best.

To be honest here, he might be as I don't think he would win us the league as some might think, but he is far ahead of Pardew. His squad is Championship level ffs. Caldwell captains his side, the fact they haven't been relegated in the last years gives him enormous credibility and while it might not work with his players he imposes a style of football which is nice to see and which is the foundation to why Swansea are where they are. It's a matter of having the right players for the right system, but I rather have the wrong players for his system, than the wrong players for Pardews system (if he actually has one).

I agree he is very negative when it's going against us but we aren't going to attract a manager of the profile you have mentioned No s*** I just want a positive manager, like Martinez. It's not about a positive manager, it's about a manager who sees football the way it should be seen. We can't seriously make a case that our squad is weaker than Soton, Norwich, Fulham, WBA, Stoke, WHam and yet we are sitting couple points behind them and without investments in the squad probably would've been even more points. I mean for me Villa has the worst squad in the league, yet we somehow managed to give them a chance to come close to drawing with us after being up 2-0. I think this and last season we have relied to much on individual brilliance and that Pardew gets far more praise than he deserves after wins.

Can't be arsed any more. Already. Aye, and I can't be arsed with your simplistic view of football. What I was trying to point out and maybe explained it in a weird way, what got our win that day was a lot to do with a Chelsea mistake at the back which led to Gouff running away from Oscar (!!!!) before Sissoko scored. It wasn't a creation of the imaginary mastertactician Alan Depardieu. The fact that some try to forget we have a very good starting 11 and point towards Pardew as a big reason for us finishing 5th last season is quite tiring. The man got us to the worst league start ever as soon as we got couple of injuries. Like Mick said, we rely almost barely on our players, and that's because we don't have a manager capable of winning games. If you start looking at individual mistakes like that (with our positives) then surely it's only fair to do the same with the negatives. If we hadn't given away a freekick or Perch had jumped Bale wouldn't have scored the first. If Taylor had won the ball or Colo hadn't just stood there Bale wouldn't have got the second. So basically, thanks to Pardew we would have beat Spurs it was just the mistakes and not Spurs outcoaching Pardew that cost us Now though, like I said and has been pointing out, every single game was an exaggeration, however, you're making a point to my case. A good coach would've started MBiwa and Tiote over Saylor and Perch. No you're just twisting things to favour your argument. MBiwa could have missed a crucial header Taylor made or Tiote may have been sent off for a reckless challenge or two leading us to get beaten by a bigger margin.

Harsh, but to an extent true. Me and palnese always agree with each other. We also know that Anderson is the best midfielder in the league.

Can't be arsed any more. Already. Aye, and I can't be arsed with your simplistic view of football. What I was trying to point out and maybe explained it in a weird way, what got our win that day was a lot to do with a Chelsea mistake at the back which led to Gouff running away from Oscar (!!!!) before Sissoko scored. It wasn't a creation of the imaginary mastertactician Alan Depardieu. The fact that some try to forget we have a very good starting 11 and point towards Pardew as a big reason for us finishing 5th last season is quite tiring. The man got us to the worst league start ever as soon as we got couple of injuries. Like Mick said, we rely almost barely on our players, and that's because we don't have a manager capable of winning games. If you start looking at individual mistakes like that (with our positives) then surely it's only fair to do the same with the negatives. If we hadn't given away a freekick or Perch had jumped Bale wouldn't have scored the first. If Taylor had won the ball or Colo hadn't just stood there Bale wouldn't have got the second. So basically, thanks to Pardew we would have beat Spurs it was just the mistakes and not Spurs outcoaching Pardew that cost us Now though, like I said and has been pointing out, every single game was an exaggeration, however, you're making a point to my case. A good coach would've started MBiwa and Tiote over Saylor and Perch.

I always knew he'd be shit. Very decent footballer, not a very good player Just doesn't give a shit about playing, he strolls around thinking of what the girl he'll get on with tonight will look like.

Can't be arsed any more. Already. Aye, and I can't be arsed with your simplistic view of football. What I was trying to point out and maybe explained it in a weird way, what got our win that day was a lot to do with a Chelsea mistake at the back which led to Gouff running away from Oscar (!!!!) before Sissoko scored. It wasn't a creation of the imaginary mastertactician Alan Depardieu. The fact that some try to forget we have a very good starting 11 and point towards Pardew as a big reason for us finishing 5th last season is quite tiring. The man got us to the worst league start ever as soon as we got couple of injuries. Like Mick said, we rely almost barely on our players, and that's because we don't have a manager capable of winning games.

I can't see anything from Pardew to make me think he's going to give us an edge. I think we're almost completely reliant on our players getting us results. I know that’s probably far too simplistic to say but I can’t be bothered to go into any detail. I can't even see anything being built by him under the first team and you would think that a manager with his length of contract would be trying to build something for the future, he's not, at least I've seen no evidence of it. It's a pity because he's working from a position of strength because the people he works for clearly want him to do well. Have a vague memory of you being one the only ones on my side re: Pardew last season when winning. Agree with everything you said btw.

I said it last season and I'll say it this season too. Pardew isn't the real reason for us finishing so high up. I'm sorry but we had a starting eleven very capable of that finish. We were riding a lot on confidence and tactically Pardew isn't great. And for the EVERY SINGLE game it was clearly an over-exaggeration. I just don't think he's a good manager and was saying that last season even when we were winning. Although tbf there are quite a lot of bad managers out there, Big Sam being one of them. Not sure thats quite true, felt we dominated the majority of the game against Chelsea. I do agree he is VERY limited though and if he can't get the best out of this group of players next season then he should go, but i would give him next season though to see how he does. I don't think we dominated but did play well, but the stadium was buzzing and carried that team to a win as soon as Gouff helped us get that 2nd goal.

Almost like there's an unspoken mandate from the FA to help him have a 'cleaner' image. It's a joke really. Refereeing is so inconsistent in this league I wonder if the refs get raped (and i really mean RAPED Titus style) whenever they make a mistake against the big teams. Nah, I just think the English game is corrupt as all hell and the matches are passively fixed. Tim D is that you?

Very good buildup there for the goal.

TBF Ashley and Derek looked drunk ashell when they went to their seats in the 2nd half.

Almost like there's an unspoken mandate from the FA to help him have a 'cleaner' image. It's a joke really. Refereeing is so inconsistent in this league I wonder if the refs get raped (and i really mean RAPED Titus style) whenever they make a mistake against the big teams.