Theregulars

Pardew, such an (infarct).

'Low it Yorks.

That was a bizarre experience. For the first time in my life watching a Newcastle game, I felt like nothing more than a neutral observer at a football match was as entertaining as a casual flick through an office supply catalogue. Such is my now utterly dormant and repressed passion for this team, I wanted to watch just to get measure of how poor a side they really are under Pardew. There is no semblance of an attacking plan, let alone philosophy. Today's tactics took the the following form: 1. Hoof it long, if we get lucky it will bounce near Perez and he might create something despite having 4 players around him; 2. Give it to Sissoko and hope he does something. Beyond Perez and Sissoko, nobody moves into any attacking position that makes me thing "good run" - i.e. one that wasn't, to me, completely obvious and unadventurous to make. The Newcastle players overlap their man on the ball so infrequently it's actually perplexing. 95% of their attacking moves are slow, overly-ponderous, built of of sideways and backward passes and players standing around and pointing. My hope is that the players just aren't very good, my suspicion is that they are specifically instructed not to commit forward and not, under pain of isolation from the first team and the King's inner court, forget their defensive duties for one second. Gouffran has been developed into an auxiliary fullback. He's actually a winger whose primary task is to defend from the front. Pardew's primary tactic for today seemed to be: "put Geordies onto the pitch; their "passion" and/or "grit" and/or "determination" (the adjectives are as interchangeable as they are completely futile) will see us through". I am at a loss to otherwise understand the Armstrong substitution when Papiss Cisse and Remy Cabella are sitting there in jogging bottoms. I think he genuinely thought the reason we lose these derbies so regularly under his stewardship is - because it, of course, cannot be his tactics, approach, tone or selections - because we did not have enough "local lads" in the team, who understand the game better than those idle foreign mercenaries (talent and aptitude for the game, be damned). He also continues with his perverse love of playing people out of position - a centre half again played at left back and, shockingly, offered nothing coming forward (and I think Dummett is actually not a bad player). A striker was once again asked to play as a defensive winger, and once again did as asked but looked like an attacking player being asked to adapt (abandon) his game. The only good central player today for Newcastle was shunted to the right wing in order to accommodate the entrance - with 30 minutes to spare - of a young player who is currently doing quite well for the reserves but has looked completely overmatched in his rare, albeit understandably encouraging, appearances in the first team. Playing players out of position is only done by managers worldwide - literally, in every league in the world - because of two reasons: 1. Injuries and suspensions causing a rare, emergency situation which you prefer to take if you don't trust the best reserve/youngster in a first team game yet; and 2. If somebody's form is so good that you need to shoehorn them into the team somehow. Neither applies in Newcastle's substitutions; indeed, the last of the 3 I cite above was precisely the opposite of option 2, to shoehorn the most inform player into a less influential position and one which does not suit him. Despite defence being the team's supposed strength, Newcastle are actually very basic and average. They clear the ball whenever possible, they stick to their man and they pack into a solid bank of four and five. It's not that they are a decent, intelligent defensive unit; it's that they have so many men behind the ball they can afford a player moving out of line to try and win the ball, or they crowd the other team out, both at the same time as always limiting their options. I wouldn't be opposed to it if it formed the basis of a game with any attacking plan to counter-balance it. As soon as Newcastle do not have numbers back, they look lost, ragged, panicked and confused. Unmarked opposition players roam free, runs are not tracked, players watch the ball only and multiple men cover the same opposition man. It suggests to me that the man who coaches that system does not have a sufficiently adept plan for when other teams counter or when players - by instinct only and likely against his instructions - over-commit to an attack in a desperate attempt to alleviate their own frustration and boredom. I have no qualifications as a football manager; I watch a lot of games in different leagues and play two or three times a week. With that as my football background, I noticed the following glaringly obvious points: 1. Due a pre-game injury, Sunderland had a centre-half at full back. Pardew chose to put Gouffran up against him from 25 minutes onwards. In that situation, surely you leave the trickier, more attack-minded winger to try and outpace or expose him? 2. Sunderland had a reserve centre half on. I would have instructed the team to target that player, and would have used a striker who is either a physical bully or very pacey. Coates had nothing out of the ordinary to deal with and was given as gentle a ride as the rest of his team. Like Sunderland correctly did with Alnick, Newcastle should have tried to rough him up a little. 3. No other coach that I know of plays a 4-5-1 formation and combines it with long-ball football. Quite apart from using a system obviously unsuitable to the striker at its tip, the system is designed as a formation which assists possession-based football (and hence its popularity and use in the last 5 years of the game, and its successful implementation by teams like Barcelona and Bayern Munich). The only reason Pardew uses the formation is that it permits him to play an extra defender in midfield. 4. Sunderland posed very little threat down their right hand-side. As the game wore on, I would have put an actual left-back capable of attacking there, confident that he wouldn't be overawed by the amount of attacking play against him. 5. Newcastle are incredibly bad at crossing the ball. Their set piece play in general is as incisive and rapier-like as a satsuma and as well thought-out as a British one-way system. Sunderland were noting more than an average side today, they played neither well nor poorly and easily could have been beaten. Newcastle, after a frenetic start, deliberately ceded territory and momentum in order to let the other team back in the game. Sunderland looked tentative and overawed at the start, and there was no hint of Newcastle keeping up the pressure once the chance of an early goal evaporated. The team has not progressed at all: it still relies on having 1-2 talented players in the front six who will sometimes create something from nothing, while defending in numbers and playing conservatively regardless of circumstance, context or opposition. Newcastle looked one-dimensional, uninspired and unnecessarily cautious. They did not deserve to lose but cannot - or, at least, should not - be surprised that they were beaten.

Fucking hyperbole merchant.

"Shire" is my new favourite insult.

Balague's Pep book was just 300 odd pages of praising him. It read like a slightly long-winded pre-mortem eulogy. Pep's obviously a great manager, nice bloke and was a top player, but the book portrayed him as a transcendent uber-benevolent saint. It got tiresome.

The majority only "want" him in that he's the lesser of two shit-stained evils compared to Pardew. As an analogy, I would rather spend a week's holiday in a sewer than in Sunderland; but in reality I'd want neither to happen.

Dead to me.

Knew I should have trademarked that nickname

I don't he is totally inept creatively. He made some useful runs and a few incisive passes, as well as whipping in some good free kicks and corners. I think taking the blinkers off from the spacky behaviour in the derby, on the evidence of one game it's a good acquisition on a free.

Because in order to improve we need more British players, because they have intangible qualities such as "heart", "grit" and "drive" that foreigners obviously lack. It's amazing that this concept still holds any sway in the "best league in the world". Then again, it's amazing that a Premier League club willingly employs Alan Pardew for 3 and a half years and counting.

The man plays 4-2-3-1 - a system, by its very design, implemented to create a fluid passing game and to create space compared to a 2-man opposition midfield - and plays long ball to a single striker up against two centre-halves renowned for their comfort in the air and strength. If you must, MUST, play the long ball bilge, then at least have a nippy support striker for the knock-downs. It's just such a basic non-understanding of tactical play.

Our non-flair players lose the ball a lot as well, so it's a step up.

Or - given that Pardew is his patsy - why doesn't he just tell him to play him?

Or be forced to sit through 24 hours of him pronouncing HBA's name "Hattam" on loop. "Hattam, Hattam, Hattam, Hattam". Except on the loop of every hour, "That one was for Mike" will be played. "Hattam". What a bellcheese.

He's right, you know. We should count our blessings that we can compete with Stoke, Southampton and Swansea. Given the extremely difficult circumstances he's under, Pardew has held the line magnificently. It's a wonder no club from a sovereign state has come in for him - indeed, at the time of Van Gaal's appointment, I though they missed a trick by seemingly overlooking our very own Midas. THIS POST IS DRIPPING WITH SARCASM

We always get jack from just down the road under his leadership tbf. You haven't been given the credit you deserve for this line. Very good.

At least you have a fabulous avatar Avatar, or bedsheet? Wrap yourself up in synthetic glory.

Slim Seriously if you don't skype me in I'm gonna nab that lovely jumper you got from primark.

Lucas still wants a competent manager for NUFC - today's irrelevant babble that won't come to fruition.

PLEASE can someone link me into it over Skype?! That's 1AM over here in Singapore, fuck sleeping

Seen it in a sports shop over here in Singapore yesterday. The crest is literally a sticker in the exact same way the wonga sign is. Arsenal and Dortmund shirts (also puma) both get a sticker, but its like a thick sticker which is shiny, 3D and looks like it is embroidered on. Ours is literally a 2D sticker of our club crest, like the kind of thing you would get in SHOOT or MATCH if you got all the club logos as a bonus for buying a season's prescription. Oh, and it's shit.

Berbatov's been as invisible for them as for Fulham, then.

Any dates between 4-21 September and I will be in England.

Colback can f*** off. Much like Nicky Butt could, and did.