80

This is one of the things I pick up on to criticise with regards Pardew. You see, for me, under Hughton we had game plans predicated on taking the calculated risks necessary to score goals and win points with our limited team. Kind of pre-meditated swashbuckling. It's one of the things I think Pardew hasn't understood and has removed/is removing from our game. Consequently, we're less effectively organised. We're a more mundane team, and in our position mundanity invites destruction. Given that, allied to our striking injuries and possible suspensions, I have real doubts about the winnability of the home games you mention. So if you're right about us losing at Stoke too... I can see things looking pretty toxic. Aside from that, thanks for the post Johnny.

Care to summarise for me? It's just a big ramble of if's and but's... The way i see it, all the teams mentioned above are in exactly the same boat, all fighting for survival, just because Everton or Birmingham or Villa have done well in previous seasons does not make them immune from relegation. We scored 4 against arsenal and just because we never had that bit of luck against Blackburn and never scored, people panic. Strange. It's all if tiote gets booked, if they won't pick up a point, but we have team spirit but we don't have class and all that malarky. We are 10th in the league a bit of positivity wouldn't go a miss as far as i'm concerned, don't look at other teams and think well they might could or won't go down, look at ourselves and go from there, so far so good, i'd rather be us than than the 10 teams below us. Congratulations, I think you've just summarised the meaning of life We can't ignore it of course, but if anything I actually see the second half against Arsenal as the aberration. In a weird kind of a way I expected it, which sort of contradicts the previous sentence, but my point is it was a demonstration of our abnormal conviction in adversity and the mirror-image absence of will our shallow opposition possessed (I've not had much time for Arsenal for years, I'd prefer NUFC to play against them than a lot of teams). As I was getting at above, ifs and buts are the nature of decent predictions unfortunately, I'm just trying to look for the tendencies and likelihoods of them. And for my own view, highlighting how knife-edge I think things are going to become for us, as I anticipate a big consistent dip coming which we'll have to recover from, as opposed to the scatter gun here and there form we've had for most of this season. That said, if Tiote starts at least another 6 games for us and doesn't get a booking, I'll drink my own piss... Nothing wrong with positivity if you think it's merited and want to pay more attention to Liverpool... just use the thread to tell me why because I don't

Regarding Harper (and Guthrie and Williamson), it's not that I lack confidence in them as players, it's that I think they naturally lack confidence in themselves. Despite being a senior member of the squad, I think he's a guy who's head's prone to dropping - unless sturdier characters help him prop it up, so to speak.

Care to summarise for me? A long ramble that gives birth to a mouse of an idea: we're poor but there's worse teams in the league and as such we wont go down. Apart from acting as a kind of night-time catharsis for me, it's there to inspire and appal... The main idea of the thread is for you to offer your own ideas on how we're going to feel as the season goes on and why. Putting aside what incredible things Ashley's gonna do this Summer, are we going to look like a team able to survive another season up here once we're done with this one etc.

Some might say this has been covered by 'accept 17th?' or the 'relegation fred', but I see a gap in the thread market. It's one thing to say what position you think we'll finish in, but another to say how we'll get there, whether it's through tactical genius or demoralising off-pitch disputes. So, I thought this could be a place for people to take in the whole picture and say how they think it's likely to turn out and why. Hell, why talk about the club when you could even save time and comment on an individuals future, or jump ship and take more interest in other clubs altogether. God only knows, we need to give Stu and co. more well-crafted ammunition or they might not have anything to doghead next season and the forum will turn into a dustbowl. So, staggering on from a game of both abject despair and life-affirming glory against Arsenal, we yesterday emerged from Ewood Park with some promising play but no goals and only one point to show for it. Above us, Liverpool and Tottenham have picked up steam. The teams below us meanwhile... well... are they all doing likewise? Superficially it seems just about so, some far more than others of course in this especially tight and topsy-turvy season. I'm gonna type some stuff below that you might be well-advised to ignore until you see some thicker, upper-case letters. Blackpool have finally ended a run of five losses with a draw, which is pretty unimpressive in itself, but they've always had a lot of goals in them, and where there are goals there's a chance of points. So two questions are whether they can keep scoring while keeping losing and vice versa. WBA's board hit the panic button and had a bullet put in Di Matteo, all for Hogson, the slags. I like him as manager, but I really don't have a strong view on whether he alone can turn them around in time for this season. It had looked like they'd already begun their post-sacking bounceback today but then... West Ham score three away from home to equalise. They're too shit to really pull themselves out aren't they? But apparently little Scotty Parker the chocolate soldier had a tantrum the likes of which he's never had before at half-time in the dressing room today, which will make all the difference, if you believe in that sort of thing. Everybody can manage one good game... Even Wolves, against Manchester United. More ground to make up than most, but it's not a huge amount and did anyone have them to go down this season? Still, if you're bottom you're bottom for some kind of reason. Uninspiring. And it's the bottom three that get relegated... Wigan? Well, they were shit against us, but they've got a bit about them, snubbing the King Kenny story at Anfield as they have. And our last-gasp bids to seize N'Zogbia didn't come off, unluckily... so he's still there to grace them. Birmingham are on the march. Aston Villa... well they definitely gave it some financial oomph, that's their steam. The Bent one was quite possibly not a bad one all things considered in my view, depends what the other options were but he'll have paid for himself if he's the difference between survival and relegation. Still, I don't much fancy them, I understand they have problems and I don't have a lot of time for Houllier, even if he's not the true source of those problems. If his club has it's back against a wall, he's someone who needs people who are instinctively on his side, characters he's moulded, and not potential enemies as he's pretty good at upsetting people. Everton. Disappointing but safe. Fulham... They're ok. Blackburn I can picture in trouble. I don't reckon Kean and with each result seeming more decisive than normal, I can see them coming off worst, or not coming off best, more often than'll be good for them. Bolton have been sliding, but thought to ask Chelsea if they could take Daniel Sturridge on loan. They hadn't even sold their star striker, only released Mustapha Riga the cheeky fuckers. Stoke. Bastards. They're alright. NEWCASTLE - so important I've bolded it so you know you can skip the derivative shit above. Still, you can't assess our form without considering its merits relative to everyone else's. 12 games, 23ish potentially available players and one compromised cockney love-god in charge of them. Where do they go from here? Well, I've typed and bored myself so much already I'm just about sick of this thread and have stopped thinking clearly, which is why I don't normally start them. Still, I'll give it a crack. Believe it or not, it is insightful to say it's been hard to tell how things are going to go. It feels like there are more variables in play than normal, aside from the usual injuries and gangrapes. This is partly due to Pardew still being new and still occasionally managing shock me with shit team selections that I really wouldn't have expected of him, but the key one in the past has been this fabled team spirit of ours. Successive traumas might have you thinking that by rights it ought to crack but it keeps reasserting it's own existence, its depth and strength, by persevering, which is almost exactly what it ought to do if it really exists. Good team spirits are only exposed in adversity, not success. Which is great. Still, team spirit and club harmony aren't one and the same, so if the aims of the club's government and its team's members diverge, problems could arise. Thankfully for our results this season, that didn't occur at the times it was most likely to, following Hughton and Carroll's departures (unless, as has been proven to always be possible with Ashley, some other even more special kind of atomic shitbomb gets dropped). So shy of management actively working to turn them against each other, that ought to be safe. And it's nice to think that the closer we get to the relegation zone, the harder that spirit drum will bang. All the same, togetherness isn't self-belief, and this is one area that I've got concerns over. Best, Ranger, Lovenkrands, Ameobi, Perch, Guthrie, Harper and Williamson aren't natural confidence-dynamos. They need external sources to push them on, which by and large they've had in the guise of an in-form Nolan, Barton, Simpson et al as well as, across the season, decent management. Still, we've never encountered genuinely bad form yet, 3+ games with little solace because even the things that normally go well have gone well and still haven't been enough to help. This group of lads have always been weaker, or at least more fragile once we could at least rely on Carroll's presence, in attack than defence. And now we're down to Best, Lovenkrands, Ranger and a time-transported retired ancient Olympian up front for possibly the best part of two months. And we're now overseen by Pardew, who I don't think has yet grasped the concept of needing to put effort into tactically unlocking Nolan in order to bring out his full worth to the team. Yes, like a lot of people I think goals are going to be a big story for us. If we keep playing well and not scoring, we risk our players getting disheartened, we risk our attacks becoming more desperate and our defence becoming more ragged and panicky. We risk more of these last-minute point-losers getting conceded, and we risk teams learning they can have far more confidence to play against us and rely on our own immobility, or lack of guile, or composure to keep us in check. We also lack depth. A yellow card for Tiote at resurgent, Obafemi Martins-armed Birmingham City next week and we'll lose him for two home games against Coyle's Bolton and Everton. Frankly it won't take a lot of bad luck for us to come out of these games with only one more point and a lot more pressure, more in-squad doubts about the wisdom of selling Carroll and terrace-side deathly premonitions. A successful reducer on Simpson or Enrique would see the return of Perch. Twitchy? Yes I am. But I do admit I've been twitchy before, albeit about different things, and we've come through it, or at least not collapsed. So the overall outlook? Well I foresee bad things, a flirtation with relegation far more serious than most seem to be expecting. Our good results haven't been enough because the other buggers keep getting them too, and now it looks like we're stopping getting them. As I type, 5 points separate us from the drop and I see that reducing, while Fulham, Birmingham and quite possibly any of Everton, Blackpool, Villa, WBA and even Wigan make their way past us in a significant sense (as significant as things get in this tight league), while we float among the remainder. I wouldn't be surprised to see Roeder lose his title as highest point-scoring manager to be relegated this season. But there's an upside, folks. I can't trust myself enough to say it's good sense instead of mad hope, but I don't think we'll go down and might well finish the season with a flourish that scorns the bitch of a run-in that we've got. Why? Ben Arfa first off. I'm hoping he hasn't already quietly gone into a huff, I'm hoping there aren't any new surprises on the injury score, but otherwise his return will wake us up big time and remind us of what we were like when we weren't shit if it should be required. Secondarily, you can't suspend Tiote for all the matches... And most importantly underlying all of this, once again, the team spirit. By hook or by crook, if we really see ourselves in a desperate enough position, we'll at least get the points we'll need. Thankfully, the wins are even bigger than the losses in this scenario, and I envisage at least one of WBA, Villa, Blackpool or Blackburn being ahead of us in the queue to drop with West Ham and Wolves. Ultimately though, and because I seem to be determined to be negative, I see us coming through this period weaker than we had once been. Slightly less resolute and more conceited in character, a bit more like we used to be. Less unity of purpose and momentum. I can see us doing well enough to make Enrique open to signing a new contract though, if that cheers anyone up. Just been doing the BBC's predictor, and I've got us finishing 11th or 12th (due to a bug) with 45 points, Blackpool going down with 37, Wigan staying up with 38. I didn't have Blackburn collapse like I think they might. Wins for us against Blackpool , Wolves and on the final day against a West Brom who relax following news of Wigan and Blackpool's final day defeats, and allow us to haul ourselves up from 15th... Still, a small piece of bad luck here and there, or weird decision-making the likes of which I've already witnessed, and things could be a fair bit more sour. If we fail to fight our way to a draw at Stoke and concede a last minute equaliser at Blackpool, West Brom definitely won't be in the mood to roll over and let us tickle their tummies on the last day, either... I'm sure someone can write something a lot more concise and at least as interesting so go for it. P.S. Annoying but no fixture lists allowed I'm afraid... not even Manc Reds or Scouse Blues... Like Basil Fawlty, I think I got away with a little one earlier, but it doesn't mean you have to try.

Fair enough Could imagine him making points I understood.

Well, true to a degree, but 80's arguement was that because of the tecnical term used, telling the press that Keegan had the final say was even more damning somehow. That arguement is invalid. No, it was just serving as a relevant example from memory. There's every likelihood such a tribunal would say 'intentionally misled' instead of lie, just because the second one is a strangely underused term in English public life. Just like how MPs can't be accused of lying in parliament by other MPs, only of 'misleading', 'conveniently forgetting' etc. The argument I was alluding to was the one I just posted above. Fair enough, but they didn't. Your post was perfectly clear, simply stating that in your eyes, using the term misled was 'potentially far more damning'. All I was doing was pointing out your mistake. I'm not really interested in getting drawn into yet another debate on the tribunal. For me the findings show the club owner and representatives to be particularly disrespectful, somewhat underhand, and poor judges of character. They rightly got caught out, but I still don't think the offense of not being explicitly clear to Keegan or the public on their policy on transfers, or even willful deceit, is any way near as bad as the vitriol it attracted (and still attracts) would suggest. It obviously wasn't You're spot on that I thought it was in the tribunal findings, but I'm well aware that I'm more of a linguistic pedant than even most judges - I didn't think they'd eschewed 'lie' for my reasons. It's been the wrong thread for talking about the Keegan tribunal in, but just to say it's clear they rightly attracted vitriol over the Keegan affair for more than just their public and private statements regarding transfer policy, never mind all the non-Keegan things that had taken place in between his constructive dismissal and the tribunal's conclusions.

Well, true to a degree, but 80's arguement was that because of the tecnical term used, telling the press that Keegan had the final say was even more damning somehow. That arguement is invalid. No, it was just serving as a relevant example from memory. There's every likelihood such a tribunal would say 'intentionally misled' instead of lie, in fairness, just because the second one is a strangely underused term in English public life. Just like how MPs can't be accused of lying in parliament by other MPs, only of 'misleading', 'conveniently forgetting' etc. - disciplinary action takes place against the accuser otherwise. The argument I was alluding to was the one I just posted above.

Can either of you direct me to where the phrase 'intentionally misled' was used in the tribunal findings? /You may find it to be a touch difficult as that line actually came in a post tribunal statement from Keegan. Fair play. Still, the thrust of my post wasn't about that, but the difference in the actions. Deliberately not speaking truths doesn't necessarily equal misleading, in football as in life people operate on certain understandings. I don't believe Bobby Robson was genuinely trying to make fans conclude that he and the team weren't thinking about winning the league in 02/03 and were just bumbling along aimlessly. Did he lie? Yes. Did he intend to mislead? No, he was operating with a communications context we understood, and he understood we understood. Misleading different people over different things can be a better or worse action depending on what's actually happening. It's literally a managers job to mislead another manager over a football game, for example, as much as it's a winger's job to feint while dribbling and send a defender the wrong way. But lies between allies, which is what a Board and supporters should be, over serious issues for selfish gain is wrong, and flagrantly doing it repeatedly to the extent your credibility is in shreds is stupid.

Managers do have final say to a certain degree and that is no longer the point. "to a certain degree" ie they are aware of their limits. i wonder if keegan was aware of his, i don't suppose we'll ever know till we find out who he was after. (and remember one of the reasons given when he first left was that he wanted to spend more-on beppe signori i think, than the club could afford) And Frank Lampard and David Beckham and Thierry Henry... and that he was 'curiously interested' in his contract-termination compensation deal and seemed to be looking for ways to make them sack him... I think we can take it they were trying to mislead us to subdue the storm.

I'm not expecting everybody to tell the truth 100% of the time, I just don't expect those running our club are going to consistently lie to us, that's not too much to expect. i would doubt he's lied more than any other club owner and we'll be at a disadvantage if he goes clean now. with everything in life it depends what the lies are. i would expect anyone in charge of the club to say things are fine even when there is tension. what exactly were the lies he told that set him aside from everyone else ? That a club legend who's done immense amounts for the entire region was treacherous, parasitic and barking at the moon mental, just in order to cover up these facts are probably true about himself?

Yep, it's true, I've pointed that out a couple of times. The PFA (who also acted as the notably docile young man's contract negotiators, he didn't have an agent) were arguing - making a good argument - that he was being screwed by the club, which led to the transfer request. Long story short, administrative issues and good will saw him sign a contract on terms that had been agreed a long time prior when he was younger and much less valuable, on the understanding it was a kind of retrospective signing of a contract that had commenced earlier. By any reasonable and decent person's standards, he was almost immediately due a new one, and of course the club suddenly began to insist he would not be offered one. Which is one reason why I've had particular suspicions about the predicament they put Carroll in.

Fwiw, technically the phrase 'intentionally misled' was used in the tribunal. Now, for most people that's lying, but strictly speaking, 'lying' and 'misleading' are two different words with different meanings. The second one is actually potentially far more damning. It might be worth those saying 'all people in football lie' considering that.

So the manager is to blame for the poor finishing of his side, laughable. Why didn't he buy a striker? Because he wasn't given any money? Well he claims it was because he was so impressed with the ones we've got. Well after weeks of claiming that he was going to "bang on the door of the chairman", he was hardly going to turn around and say "Oh well, I'm a gullible b******. He didn't give me any money which is a shame, because all the strikers we've got are s***" Well after weeks of telling us Andy Carroll wasn't for sale, he sold him so that's an absolutely ridiculous point. Mick has made the point for me - why bring in an injured midfielder instead of, for example, Sturridge? Because the money was probably already earmarked for HBA and I doubt Pardew even had much of a say in it either. My point is, the blame for me lies squarely at the door of the boardroom. I don't blame Pardew for not signing anyone in the window. Like Hughton before him, he's just making the best of a bad situation. He's just an irrelevant puppet in this whole charade. Why bring in Ireland instead of a loan striker? Because when we started the Ireland deal, we were desperately short in midfield, Carroll was still a NUFC player and Shola didn't have a fractured jaw. That's utter drivel. Our first choice midfield four were all available other than one who was suspended and would be back before Ireland was fit, Carroll we knew was injured for weeks or months and Shola is Shola, consistently either injured or shit. We've been desperate for another striker all season, not to mention the fact that we were actively attempting to sell Carroll. and again an anti Ashley protester using the Carroll sale to big up their argument. What on Earth are you talking about? You talking about the club actively looking to sell Carroll. Obviously the club asked Carroll to ask for a new contract and forced him to put in a transfer request. You are speculating basically. I'm not speculating. I'm stating what anyone with a brain cell can see was absolutely fucking obvious. If you don't want to see what's right in front of your nose then don't, but don't claim that anyone who does is speculating. It is speculating, your just using your fucking bias against Ashley to twist your own view of what happened. He's using quotes from Liverpool's chairman, actually.

I agree with that but we have to measure performance and doing so in any other way is subjective. I agree, but football is a subjective game, especially on discussion forums! Measuring Pardew just by the progress up or down the table in the tiny amount of time he's been here is mental IMO. I don't disagree, but it should be pointed out a lot of people thought our rise from our brief drop to 11th under Hughton to 8th three or four games later under Pardew was significant. Both are stupid ideas.

I disagree, but assuming you're taking the mick out of the last idea, I'd also say him not being Chris Hughton is important in itself, never mind the qualities he offered. He'd done special things for this club, he had a relationship with supporters that means he should be offered loyalty and seen as more than just 'manager x'. I'm not saying this is itself should be held against Pardew (not saying it shouldn't either...), but I think it's an important point to make as I've seen displays of disloyalty towards him around that I'd consider no different to gloryhunting. If you're not going to be bothered about a good person being dumped if you agree there's no good reason, let alone actually screwed in the process, then what's the point of it all?

But you don't approve of beating up the organ grinder either, you say it's a waste of effort and won't make any difference Dave, hit the off button, this place is finished I never said I didn't approve of going after Ashley. My concern is everything that's been proposed will be like giving him a dead leg as opposed to 'beating him up'. It hasn't read that way, but ok fair enough. Seriously, have you got any thoughts at all about what can be done to beat him up/change him for the better? It's just that what I've read from you has been ultra-passive, almost to the point of masochism given that you agree they've been poisonous to the club and are likely to continue to be, and it's depressing stuff. Didn't originally intend to spring this on you in here, so apologies for that, but it's just you say you'd flout/weaken any boycott, won't abuse him in in the stadium for fear of the consequences etc. So what do you think can/should be done by supporters to improve the club's future?

Mackems, Spurs? Arsenal away, West Ham, Everton etc?

We're talking about the future.E.g this summer.With the likes of Jose,Tiote,Colo etc. OK, well I just prefer not to decide we'll sell all these players before anything has actually happened. I like enjoying having good players at the club rather than constantly saying "he'll be off in the summer", "He's gone" and self-pitying bollocks like that. This certainty we're selling all our good players is killing almost every thread at the moment, it's depressing as fuck. It's not self-pitying, that would be 'why is it always us?'. It's maybe more self-protecting - ambivalent attachment to good things is natural and maybe advisable when you've got strong reason to expect them to be ripped away in unhappy circumstances. The attitude isn't killing all the threads, the people who've created the attitude among supporters are, and yes it is depressing as fuck to think it's not going to change regardless of how healthy the bank balance becomes.

Agree completely. They're likeable in many ways (although the association with Hughes loses them brownie-points), and - to be totally condescending - it's bizarre how a club the size of Fulham have maintained their allegiance with the Premier League for this long. I can't see them being around forever, but West Brom are a big club that just need something to propel them from this yo-yo status quo. That was never going to happen with Di Matteo but Hodgson is the perfect man imo. Great appointment. Yep, Shaun must not know much about either club or the history of football. Until the Premier League started changing things, WBA have always been obvious potential title winners, speaking in the way that we, Tottenham, Sheffield Wednesday et al were. Can't say that for Fulham and don't forsee that ever changing, either. Don't have any particular affection for them, but like all decent clubs who've been on their uppers since Sky changed the game, I'd love to see them establish themselves in the top 6/4 one day* *The right way, unlike Manchester City.

What I can say for Jonas is he's a solid wide-midfielder. With what he offers, on the pitch most particularly in terms of energy and his willingness to use it, as well as his off-pitch character, he's a player you can build a club upon. He won't take a club all the way, someone like Ben Arfa is a natural and appropriate upgrade, but he's reliable and can play a positive role, by no means least including that of assisting his teammates to play well. Even his failings are reliable, and there's something to be said for that.

But you don't approve of beating up the organ grinder either, you say it's a waste of effort and won't make any difference Dave, hit the off button, this place is finished

And of course, we'd absolutely ruined them when we actually attacked them in the first leg.