alpal78

Whilst I agree with that, I hope all hell does not break loose if we lose tomorrow. It's gonna be hard to even get a draw without Carrol and Tiote (though Pardew only has himself to blame for not being able to play the latter)

Yup securing our key players on long term contracts is as important as getting transfers in.

Not feeling good bout this lads, would be more than happy with a draw even a boring 0-0!

You've got the canny ability to be wrong. You're right, I was wrong bout you coz at one point I thought you were a decent poster who was always objective. Anyway I take it that you're not gonna debate the earlier point on Tiote. Ok I'm out of this thread then

Sorry madras, but you've got this one completely wrong Go back a page or two, read what I've said and then tell me that I'm attacking him because I don't like him. Yup I'll vouch that Jonny has been quite objective in this thread

I'm sure you'd love that

Are you a qualified mind reader or is it just a hobby? I have this canny ability to infer intelligently based on what is and what is not written, thank you

Taken from HERE So if he bigs up a player like Shola to try and motivate him, he's wrong If he criticize players who don't perform like Ranger and Krul, he's wrong too So what should he do?

So which club have spent the most so far? and where do we stand in relation to them (in terms of spending?)

All this talk about Robert is making me sad, when will have LW like that again? HBA...maybe, though I think they're quite different. Will never forgive Souness the cunt for the way he treated Robert!

In the sense that the fan's get on Jonas' back like they did with Robert. Two frustrating players. Does something poor in the game and you can hear the abusive shout outs and groans go right through the ground. The two of them combined would be one of the best LW's in the world. Robert was one of the best LWs in the world. Would agree with this, was always a fan of his and defended him many times on this forum. His crossing, freekicks and long range shooting was amongst the best. Remember the Spurs game...unfuckingbelievable! I could not care less if he did ot reproduce the same form week in week out, at such high level nobody could maybe barring Messi and possibly Ronaldo. As fans we live for magical moments when a game is won with a stroke of genius....and Robert provided it in abundanace!

Some good points except for the private voting...if anything FIFA has thought us, it's that private voting just creates a gold mine for corruption

No way I would defend this, stupid purchase if true. I'd rather give Xisco a decent run that get him!

More like silly stuff

I completely undervalue what Tiote brings to our midfield? To be honest I think you're going way over the top regarding Tiote and this game. He is a very good player and one that we're almost certain to miss this weekend. Having said that, we absolutely walked a division which had a lot of better teams than Stevenage playing in it and we did that without Tiote. We were playing a team which didn't need Tiote to beat it and it was a game in which only one or two players came out with any sort of credit, Tiote wasn't going to turn around the games of so many players in so many positions. Earlier this season we played a team from the same division as Stevenage and one higher up the league. We fielded a team which contained 11 different players from the one that beat Villa the week before and one that didn't contain Tiote, guess what, we beat them. What do you mean I intentionally omitted the part that Pardew had a 10 point deduction? Pardew knew that his target was and he knew that he had a 10 deficit to make up, he spent £millions to achieve the play-offs and he failed. Why should I mention the points deduction? I would have thought that most people know that clubs like Southampton, Leeds and Portsmouth have had deductions. I'm not gonna argue on the value of Tiote because that is subjective, to each his own. My point was that he is more just than a DM, so putting him on does not mean we were becoming more defensive. You are right majority of our players underperformed against Stevenage, I don't know the reason for that, could be a combination of fatigue, attittude, Barton on the left, Tioteless midifeld and it's hard to predict whether we would have fared any better had Tiote not been sent off. Part of the problem at least is that our entire midfield was being bypassed and overan by the high tempo game that Stevenage played. So whilst I disagree with the decision to bring Tiote on, I can understand why Pardew did it. What is the alternative? If as you said, bringing Tiote on wasn't gonna change things, then what do you expect Pardew to do? Just stand around and not even try to change things? That would be straight from Hughton's manual of management wouldn't it, perhaps you would prefer that? Well I don't, when things go wrong (as they inevitably will sometimes), I want the manager to take charge and try to change things around instead of just looking handsome in a coat on the sideline doing nothing. Regarding the 10 points deduction, I think you were trying to paint Pardew in a very negative light when you ommitted that nugget of fact and stated "Pardew had the highest budget in the division and his target was to reach a play-off position and he failed". Now you claim that you thought everyone knew that already . If you were interested in an objective assessment, you would have mentioned it outright in your first statement and not wait for Greg and Neesy to point it out to you.

I guess after the no show against lowly Stevenage, people are changing their mind again?

early March I think, though the earlier the better. Only expect him to hit top gear by April which will be like a shot of adrenalin for us. Given how open the league is this season, I'm convinced we could have been in the top 6 had he not been taken out. Fuck De Jong!

Can we go back to discussing HBA? The last few pages started off as funny, but has now ran its course

Nah aside from the Stevenage embarassment (including wrongly playing Tiote), nothing bad has really happened. He could use more discretion in airing some of his views but I suspect that is just his style and it's no big tragedy. It's more like a bunch of people who are desperate to be proven right on how bad Pardew is gonna be, that are jumping on every little thing he does to criticize him. Unbelievable that after we beat Liverpool, Wigan and thrash West Ham, that fans are still not willing to give him a chance. I'm not saying give him a blowjob, but at least be honest give him credit when its due and see how things pan out first before playing the Souness card.

Possibly, but I'll wait for things to go downhill before dismissing him as another Souness, so far things have been relatively good.

It had nothing to do with hindsight; Tiote is a defensive midfielder and is as unlikely as Alan Smith is when it comes to turning a 2-0 deficit around. Replacing 1 man wasn’t going to change a game in which we probably had 7 or 8 players all playing below par. Mick, you completely undervalue what Tiote brings to our midfield. He is a defesive midfielder only in name and people say that to simplify things but he is not in the mould of Smith or John Mikel Obi at all. His role is not just to stop play and get tackles in. He is more of the Essien, Xabi Alonso, Xavi (though obviously not at their level) in the sense that he dictates our tempo and how we pass the ball from defence to attack. Against Stevenage, without that link, even Colo decided to hoof the ball up because there was just no outlet. Passing it to a midifielder would have meant just losing the ball. True quite a few of our players underperformed against Stevenage but I would say that was largely because of Tiote's absence...that is how important he is to us. Without him players like Nolan, Barton have to try and do things on their own and let's just say that, that's not their strength at all. Based on that, I can at least understand (though I disagree with the decision) why Pardew tried to gamble putting Tiote on, putting on another below average striker was not gonna change anything, it's not like we had Carroll on the subs bench. Having said that, if it was me I would not have risked putting Tiote on at all, in fact my view is that until we establish ourselves as a mid table club, the FA cup is the least of our concern, I would have just fielded our youngsters along with players like Ranger and Xisco and ask them to have a go at Stevenage. Your assertions that Hughton would have not done this or done that, like "I do not believe for one minute that we would have seen the display against Stevenage under Hughton" or "I have no doubt at all that we wouldn’t be going into the mackem game without Tiote if Hughton was still here" is unfortunately just that, bollocks assertion. Despite your best believe, nobody can say for sure what Hughton would have done. All this coupled with the fact how you intentionally omitted the part that Pardew had a 10 point deduction when you come out with your super "Pardew had the highest budget in the division and his target was to reach a play-off position and he failed", tells me that you are either unable or unwilling to be objective in your assessment of Pardew. Stevenage aside (which yes I hold him accountable for), he has exceeded my expectations in the other 5 games. I have no doubt at all that we would have only got maximum 4 points under Hughton for those 5 games, two can play the bollocks assertion game.

Look at something like Shearer's challenge on Bridge in the FA Cup a few years ago. Not saying it was a dangerous challenge, because it wasn't, it was perfect infact, but Bridge ended up breaking his leg - by that logic, Shearer should have been punished and banned for that challenge - that's the reason why the laws focus on action rather than consequence. For what it's worth I think De Jong should have been banned, but not because he broke HBA's leg, but because the challenge was 'dangerous and reckless' whether it broke the player's leg or not. No I wasn't suggesting a player get banned just based on consequences (broken leg), but I think you would find (just by observation) that most leg breakers are indeed dangerous tackles. There are of course instances when a player is extremely unlucky when his foot gets stuck in the turf/grass but those are exceptions and not the norm. Yes De Jong should have been punished for a dangerous tackle, even more dangerous than Tiote's, the whole rule that if the ref saw it, we can't change it surely has to go, it is as bad as FIFA opposition to goal line technology.

Yeah! How dare he lose the ball and then trip over Tiote. Some people have no class The dick head got up, realised what was going on and went back down. Grade A t*** Conspiracy innit. They're all out to get us Jesus wept. Excuse me whilst I borrow a few sarcastic words levied at me the other day: Grow up. Me grow up? I'm not the one going "They're corrupt!" "They hate us, they did it on purpose!" "Booo FA!". Just face it. Whether he won the ball or not, whether it was a perfect challenge or not, the FA deemed that the 'lunge' of both of his feet leaving the ground was deemed 'dangerous play'. Get over it. Jonny, I see your point, I don't buy the whole conspiracy theory either. Although Tiote made no contact, if the FA deemed a two footed lunge dangerous and merits a red card, then the decision is 'right' (strictly speaking) but what I find difficult to accept is that the same FA decided not to retrospectively punish De Jong for breaking a player's leg. Surely the purpose of all these laws is to protect players from horrific injuries, when the law is enforced literally without taking into account their very purpose, then something is seriously wrong. The law is a means to achieve an end not and end in itself.

Completely disagree, he did not just jump in. It was a two footed lunge with studs showing that landed squarely on Carrick's ankle. The only way it could have been worse was if the ankle actually snapped!