HawK

Closer to 14th than 6th, poor team with a poor manager with 2 outstanding players.

English, it wasn't that bad tbh. Would pay to hear it in English. He came across quite shy and happy =)

Omg he comes across so shy !

I just cannot believe we'll win with that back 4 on the pitch, they are atrocious! I'll be ecstatic at 3-3, with the way Pardew has us playing now. Anything more would be a bonus for me.

Topics like this always amuse me when I dip in to read, it's like some people feel the urge to try to convince those that cannot be swayed. Personally, I am well informed on the subject past and present, and it's my opinion that he is the best footballer in the world right now, and almost up there with Pelé - you simply cannot refute the fact that in nowadays football he is protected to such a huge degree, and the method of his style of play is tailored to that protection. I'm not saying he couldn't cope back in Pelé's era, he'd be a fantastic player still, as is evidenced by the numerous youtube videos of Messi refusing to fall over when fouled and just continuing with play, but it was a different level of physicality in the 60's. Perhaps people just like to argue against the established opinion when a new idea comes along, a healthy rebellion-fueled debate as it were. I'd like to see Messi truely carry a team that he doesn't play regularly for - Maradona with Napoli and Agentina for example - rather than win a WC, which can be down to so many more factors that just one person's outstanding ability.

Lost something like 10 games in a row. If anyone thinks Keegan could do a better job than Pardew, then they are insane. lol

Tend to agree, stats without context are useless. He has such a high successful tackle percentage compared to the others because he's too afraid/not good enough to pull off the necessary/risky tackles in the first place, and just makes the easy ones on the half way line.

By 'Him' I meant Raylor

Gives us another option on the right ahead of Raylor, stick him at LB and Santon RB and we're half way towards a balanced lineup, obviously only if his skill is up to it of course - haven't seen much of him.

I am thinking now that I wish some of these posters here had crossed my path in the Alan Pardew thread instead and could have received an education. Alas I just can't be arsed now =) 'I play Football Manager, I know what I'm talking about' is where it's at here apparently

Completely different to Shola situation, you are 100% clueless. One of the best squad players you could get behind the top 4 teams in the country with his versatility, commitment and what he offers on the pitch. Do I want him starting when our first XI is fit - of course not, but you need options. Good signing. Agree would rather we had young+upcomings on the bench, but we're not exactly in a position to gamble big bucks on young players like Wickham or Oxade-Chamberlain. Be thankful that we have at least Krul so far, he's worth all the money put into the other youngsters that failed combined, the multiply by a hundred. Young players don't just magically appear to fill the bench, it takes 10-15 years to get the structure right before we can ever hope of having players coming through like Man United or Liverpool. We're still recovering from the first Keegan period where he axed the entire infrastructure beyond the first team, we didn't even have a reserves.

Against pace? When? whoosh.

Can we agree to agree? lol

What? That's exactly what I said lol. I think he means that we were allowing them to win the second ball and then trying to contest the next phase - i.e. when they attack us with the ball they just won. Ah Ok.. seriously? Without wanting to sound too chastising, who on earth would set their team up to just give the ball to the opposition and tell them to attack us, at home lol. the hope is that the ball will stick with the forwards. it didn't. several times on sunday ba was waving for the midfield to come in to challenge the second ball he had went for and it had dropped away. Which comes full circle to many of the points I've made regarding Pardew's tactics in the past few pages, in summary to do with his inability to adapt or set up a team with a basic strategy that plays to the strengths of the players. Not that I'm disagreeing with you, entirely the opposite, but I've made those points quite a few times now I think I should just copy + paste =)

What? That's exactly what I said lol. I think he means that we were allowing them to win the second ball and then trying to contest the next phase - i.e. when they attack us with the ball they just won. Ah Ok.. seriously? Without wanting to sound too chastising, who on earth would set their team up to just give the ball to the opposition and tell them to attack us, at home lol.

What? That's exactly what I said lol.

Ashley's infrastructure behind the first team and the economy behind it has simply been a breath of fresh air, first class. If only someone could get him to understand the value of spending big on the most important position in the club

Perhaps I should just stop writing 'megaposts' Edit: Just realised I should probably change the avatar now, appears he's spent a lot of it

Cheers, and no you haven't done a Ronaldo I think I was entitled to one snipe in that post lol. This isn't a reply to you directly as such, I've read over the comments of quite a few. It does all come down to a matter of opinion, and that's the magic that will either divide or unite fans, sack or back a manager or make or break a player. Anyone is welcome to disagree with comparative squad strength, as it is opinion-based, but not without a sound grounding in the facts though. We've rarely had such international pedigree throughout our team, but I would highlight in particular the use of our 2 defensive midfielders, Cabaye and Tiote. The tactical naivety that I was alluding to was essentially that Pardew was playing for the second ball* for most of the game, assuming our midfield pairing would mop them up time and time again, regardless of how our front 2 coped with it. A sound strategy - if you don't also instruct them both to sit practically 5 yards in front of Williamson and Coloccini - except the Sunderland players were wise to this and the huge gap between our front 2 and our midfield 2 was always filled with red and white shirts every time Krul punted it upfield. It's something remedied by a very quick touchline shout to your nearest player to feed on, 'Cabaye, push up on the long balls to get the second ball'. Every manager has qualities, such as those I highlighted earlier with Pardew, but the key, key area that a good/top manager will have, is the footballing acumen/nous to change and adapt to your opposition each game and to be able to fix things when they are no longer working. Even when we were against 10 men, both our fullbacks refused to get forward and support the attack. It's a key thing in today's 4-4-2, with a strong midfield partnership, in possession you should be aiming to get your fullbacks moving forward in line with the ball while your centrebacks sit deep, and Pardew really hasn't cottoned on to this. But bringing the above to a close, Yohan Cabaye is a player who plays at the centre of a French team that has just beaten Germany 2-1 in Germany, a team that the best of the English can't hope to touch right now. We all know how good Tiote is. I can't see beyond poor tactical setup as to why these 2 are not absolutely dominating games even when against 4-5-1. Coloccini has been rightfully lauded as one of the best centre backs in the league, and already Krul is up there as a good keeper, although there aren't too many good keepers around right now. Demba Ba has been here a year and proven his class, Cisse yet to prove so but the signs are there for all to see that he can be successful. We move on to players like Jonas, who until recently was a regular with Argentina, who's ability to retain the ball and hold up play is one of the reasons we were able to survive the second part of last season after Andy Carroll left. Hatem Ben Arfa has been described by French players as one of the most gifted players of his generation. Santon, although learning, has more experience than people give him credit for. He was able to keep CRonaldo in his pocket when he played for Inter in the Champions League. Every team has their Taylors', their Simpsons and their Williamsons, but the difference between them and us is the ability of the manager to at least get them playing in the right manner and to accentuate the strengths of our best players, not refuse to play them due to a lack of tactical knowledge on how to do so. Because our recent history has been so dire, it's easy to be blinded to the very poor tactics by the league position, I can understand that, and I can understand an attitude of 'Ok, lets finish this up and push on next year'. But what I don't understand is how people can praise Pardew so highly for how 'he' has achieved this, I think it's mostly down to the quality of the players at his disposal and the outstanding work of Graham Carr to ensure our recruits don't even seem to need to gel. I have to agree that we're doing OK now, in terms of results. But with the evidence on display with our performances, it's hard to see how a manager of Alan Pardew's ilk is going to get us any further than we are. I mentioned a false ceiling before, and he's the man holding it up right now. * Just realised some may not get what I meant by second ball - It is what is referred to often as when the ball is hoofed upfield (first ball), the resulting header/layoff/knock down of that hoofball is called the second ball. I think Graham Taylor coined it, he invented the long ball after all lol.

Quite a few have said similar things, and I'll add my hat to this particular ring.

Sorry for highlighting your particular post on this issue, it's not personal it was just the most recent. How on earth can people credit a manager for making the mistake of not starting your best attacking player on the park by saying he made a good move by putting him on at the start of the second half? There seems to be an obvious divide of younger fans and older ones on this board, nothing against the younger ones, and to be fair to them, this is probably the best they've seen in terms of league position as fans in their adult lives. The culture of acceptance among those is quite startling to me, having seen tenures like Pardew's an amount of times I can count on almost 2 hands now since we returned to the top flight (and I mean in 1993-1994). It's difficult to express on a forum to fans who love the club, who are obviously younger, a voice of experience while sitting behind a keyboard and a computer screen where people's automatic defensive postures are protected by a shroud of anonymity, with the tendency to pick apart well thought-out posts one sentence at a time, let alone word by word, to build a sense of an online persona. Hi Ronaldo. The over-analysis of the 4-3-3 Keegan tactic is 100% unequivocally irrelevant. The point I was making, is that such a manager of that calibre had the confidence and the nous to be able to identify a system that would possibly and logically fit the team he had at his disposal - and try it. If anyone believes for one moment Alan Pardew is doing this with our team, or even attempting to, well I don't know what I can say to you, other than ignorance is bless. If you believe that hoofing the ball long to 2 players who are incapable of playing the way they were asked to (hold up the ball/provide the second ball) is the correct thing to do, and simply blame Krul for his 'poor distribution', I must politely ask you perhaps post a little less and read a little more from those that do know what they are talking about. This won't happen, but I can still ask all the same. I could walk the forum through, player by player, how as a squad, where we sit compared with other squads we've had in all our team in the Premier League and show you that we are almost as strong now as we've ever been compared to previous squads. But some people will just refuse to concede a point, as this is an internet forum where you cannot be wrong, just to save face. So I'm not going to waste the keystrokes, people with the experience following this club know this anyway. If people are happy, let them be happy. But those people that do seem to be happy, also seem to be the ones saying things like the tactical 'masterstroke' of putting HBA on at half time, Krul's poor distribution and how poor our front 2 were yesterday were of no fault of the manager, and this is quite simply wrong. As a fan of 22 years I can very confidently say that Hatem Ben Arfa is one of the most confident and technically skilled players we've ever had in my time, and I would humbly suggest that others who have seen us for longer would agree also, as prior to when I started watching us we weren't exactly in the best of shape until a lot further back. How a football manager cannot accommodate his best player is at the least troubling at any level, but how a Premier League Manager cannot accommodate his best player is shocking. Rewind to Bellamy under Souness, arguably our best player at the time. Due to the nature of this debate and where it's occurring, I know I'm never going to 'win', nor am I trying to - that would be impossible. But you cannot argue with the facts - we are 6th, we are performing as well now as under Roeder, Souness, Allardyce, Dalglish or Gullit. Each and every one of those managers, were found out when results caught up with their performances as the tactics and the management were simply not up to the level required. How many of those managers have gone on to any degree of success after leaving here? Zero. Because they were all poor, and I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Alan Pardew is in exactly the same bracket. How long he lasts will be how long he can be carried by the outstanding individual quality of 5-6 of our players. A good PR man for the club, a good man-manager and a good manager at being able to relate to the fans (although how much of this is down to John Carver's presence is conspicuous). There is a reason managers sacked over and over again at smaller clubs in lower leagues don't strike it lucky at a Premier League club - because they are simply not good enough, and most Premier League chairmen would never hire a manager with his record, it's the basics of recruitment. Take a look at his CV and his reasons for having left his previous clubs and every single chairman would run a mile - except a chairman like Mike Ashley - a track record of being a risk-taker and having an impulsive business mantra. I suppose I better be quiet now and cut all hopes of ever challenging at the top of the table again, just how Mike Ashley likes it.

Quite simply he's one of the most talented footballers this club has had in the past 20 years.

Disappointed, expected much better from you.

I think some of these people forget that we were sitting a league below in dire straits only two years ago and were sitting in the bottom half when the man took the helm. They forget that he had to sell his most high profile player two or three weeks into his career here. Anything above seventh for this club, is a great result and it is ridiculous to act like Pardew had no part in this. I am not a supporter of some of the negative football he has employed, but at the same time, he completely changed the formation earlier in the season to give Ben Arfa room to operate. I think he is learning and adjusting and it is good to give him time in which to do so. As this is a thread on Pardew, I won't go into the fact that our progress in no circumstances whatsoever should be measured by how far we've come since we got promoted back. It should be measured from when MA took over, almost 5 years ago in May 2007. Our progress under Pardew is better than Hughton, that I won't argue with, less romantic performances and results but a more pragmatic and effective way to grind out results. But the evidence on the pitch in the previous few months shows a manager who doesn't grasp the fundamentals, today a prime example. At the end of the day, what the hell are you smoking? You are quite daft if you do not think players like Cabaye, Tiote, Ben Arfa, Cisse, Ba, Coloccini and Krul wouldn't be pushing for starting births for most of the top 4-5 clubs in the country, bar City. To argue that every player has to be of this class, is pedantic. You could pick apart any of those sides for weaknesses in certain positions. The point I was making, is with players of this ilk, a better manager than Pardew would be achieving more, because it's not for want of a better starting XI. Your general point about you potentially doing better with someone other than Pardew is fair enough and seems to be the main issue on this board at the moment. However, IMO you're overestimating the quality of your squad. Coloccini is a class act and would get into pretty much every starting line up in the league. The rest, to varying degrees, wouldn't. You've every right to say you have some quality players but you're getting ahead of yourself in my view. You're using a very harsh stick to beat Pardew with by stating/implying most of your first team players would be of top 4 quality. Cabaye and Tiote for example, when I see them, I see good players but not to the extent to which I've read them being previously praised on here. That's a fair point, but I do think, given how Cabaye is starting in the middle for France ahead of some absolute quality players should indicate that something isn't right with his club form. The same could be said of Tiote - I think they would both look twice the player they are in a system that keeps the ball on the deck from keeper to midfield. Of course as a supporter my glasses are slightly tinted, I won't argue against that. It's like the Allardyce saga all over again, except this time we actually have a damn good starting XI, the best since Sir Bobby in my opinion, and it's so frustrating. Keegan had a lot less than what Pardew has now, and a few seasons ago against a stronger Man United side at the beginning of the season before he went, we bossed them at Old Trafford. We were playing good football and I'm pretty sure the whole forum was united in the hope that we were going on to better things. Whereas at the moment, I'm scratching my head to think how long it's going to take until we're found out with our constant route 1 football with strikers who can't win a header or hold off a challenge. For his ability to drill the defence and be tight, with the right people, it's frustrating he can't get the basics with the other 6 players on the field. How quickly did it take for Keegan to come in and switch to a 4-3-3 with Owen, Viduka and Martins? We all thought about this on the forum, but to actually have a manager to have the confidence and balls to carry it out came as a shock after the recent procession of managers. I don't think Pardew has the capability of taking the risks and thus earning rewards that come with them. I'm using Keegan as an example as he was able to revitalize a stagnant squad, but the same could have been said of Sir Bobby. For me it all boils down to this; should I be satisfied with where we are, knowing that with a better manager we could be doing better? Or should I be satisfied that we could be in a worse position if our manager wasn't as strong as Pardew. Either way, I am satisfied that we are at least up there challenging around 6th place, but this form has been less about the manager, and more about Demba Ba's incredible form. It reminds me a great deal of Roeder's first half-season in charge where we fluked our way to 7th, and no-one had a clue how we were winning because the football was shocking, and Ameobi was scoring the goals. Lo and behold, over time, this ideology failed because eventually the results caught up with the performances and the strength of the first XI and he had to go. I believe for the same reason, due the lack of progressive and adaptive football, we have already reached our ceiling. A false ceiling with the infrastructure and players that we have. I'd rate Pardew alongside Roeder in quite a few ways, seemingly able when there's limited options and where the team would pick itself, but with the full strength of the squad, unable to make the big decisions that could ultimately take us to the next level by getting the best out of the squad. One of the official reasons cited for his departure from Southampton, was the board's annoyance that they felt Pardew was unable to work with a squad of players outside the first XI. It's easy to get romanticized towards the man, with his great interviews, good newspaper quotes and so forth, probably the best of our managers in many a year in this regard, and our league position. Historically for us, with a good manager in the PL, we've been a top 4 club both times. Perhaps I am less easily pleased than others - not that this is necessarily a good thing, I'd rather be happy than sad! - but since Keegan's original departure, there have been so many false-dawns that it's becoming easier and easier to see the signs of a management style that will either develop and progress our squad and club, and one that doesn't. Only Bobby's shown us what we are capable of, as a club with our fanbase, crowds, history and revenue since Keegan left. Pardew's just not of the quality that this club should be aiming to recruit for his position. We won't ever go beyond this if Mike Ashley continues to run the club how he does, that's why I'm so sad right now, because no manager capable of what the previous 2 legends have done, would work for us under Mike Ashley, for all the good things he's done recently. That said, am I happy now, as a Newcastle United supporter from the age of 6 and now 28 with our direction? Maybe, if I've had my expectations so horribly shattered in the past 5 years that to be aiming just for a top 6 or 7 finish should be seen as a success. But Mike Ashley still hasn't broken me, and now that we've got the players and a system behind the squad geared for success, I won't be happy until he decides to let go and give control to a man that can bring back the good times to SJP. Until then, I'll just be as apathetic as ever.