alpal78

Possibly but winning is all that matters. True, but i'm not getting involved in blowing Pardew for great tactics. Two poor sides for me. So when we win it's two poor sides, when we lose to the likes of City and Spurs, nothing to do with the superior quality of the opposition, just Pardew's fault. Right!

Then we'll just disagree. I have no problems for us to go to 4-5-1 defending a lead away even against supposedly a weaker team. I don't see anything wrong with taking a more cautious approach after we've led and like I said the formation did not made us overly defensive, if anything we had decent chances even after the changes...so I'm really not sure where you're coming from.

Exactly! Re Smith on for Nolan, if Nolan was left on 90 minutes, you can just see the same people blasting Pardew for not taking him off since he was clearly knackered. Can't win with some people. Would be nice if we had a better sub for CM other than Smith but who else did we have and by his low standards, Smith did fine.

So you'd rather go all out attack in the last 10 minutes with a 1-0 lead away? IMO although we changed to a 4-5-1 we were not overly defensive to the point of inviting Wigan to pile on the pressure.

Good when we're defending a lead. It was a more compact formation with three in thee middle and yet we were not overly defensive, we attacked when we could. What is your problem with that formation?

The Enrique one was hardly sprung on him, he was informed via a text message. He gave the right response regardless of whether the question was sprung on him or not. Injury news that can reveal lineups should not be allowed, can't imagine the likes of SAF, Mourinho, Wenger ...etc tolerating that

How is commenting on Jose's Twitter feed or Ranger's lateness for training any different than Hughton saying Carroll had been 'a bit below par' in training a couple of months back? I don't like Pardew much, but there are some laughable double standards on display in this thread. Easy to have double standards when you've decided from the word go not to give Pardew a chance because he was appointed by the evil one to replace the angelic Hughton. We can argue about whether playing Perch at left back was the wrong decision (for the record I thought he played decent until he let Lennon shoot and even then it was deflected in) and whether Smith should have played at all (so better to play Guthrie?), but surely tweeting about your injury and therefore possible lineup is something that most decent managers would not condone. But don't let common sense get in the way if you've decided that you hate Pardew. For the record I think Pardew is average at best but I will give him till the transfer window closes to see if he can get us points against opponents that we should be beating and whether he can get us some much needed bodies.

If we get relegated it won't be because we lost away to Spurs or at home to Man City. It will be because of our lost at home to the likes of Blackpool, Stoke and Blackburn

Well, in terms of form yes, sheer quality... not really, he still isn't better than say, James Beattie was at his pomp. He swapped shirts with Crouch yesterday, blatantly wanted to trade places with him some of us here thinks that he is world class already

I stand by my earlier comment (even before this game) that we should sell Carroll if two conditions are met 1) we get minimum offer of 30M 2) All 30M are reinvested back to strengthen various positions in the team (RW, strikers, and backup LB) Right now all we have is Carroll which is why all we seem to do is lump the ball to his head and hope that he does something with it, when he has even a slightly off day (like yesterday), our attack becomes completely toothless Anything to say Antec beyond your typical response of ?

anybody said that or you just love pointless exaggerations? its your attempt at sarcasm that deserves My suggestion was far better than the utter bullshit you've been spouting. Pipe down and leave 'supporting' Newcastle to real fans Oooh you're such a sooopafan...I'm trembling scared, go sleep if you can't tolerate others having a different opinion to yours.

Taylor is and always has been s**** man. Mike Williamson sat on the f***ing bench!? I'm speechless. I'll agree with this, Taylor ahead of Williamson is clearly a mistake, a mistake that I expect to be rectified in the next game.

Couldn't agree more with this post. Play 2 upfront huh...how many times did Ranger start under the fantastic Hughton? Or would you prefer to play Lovenkards or Xisco from the start. Call him a coward when he has options to play two upfront not when Ameobi is injured and Nolan is suspended, then you will have some credibility. Otherwise you're just moaning

i've been saying this for a week now, he's come in and changed things that didnt need changing, and he's actively ruining what little edge we had. What exactly has he changed? Taken Barton off the wing for a start. Been more down to injuries and the like. no Yes. do you mean against man city when he had all the personell available that he needed to play barton on the right? or today when he had all the personell he needed available to play barton on the right? just like since williamson's been available again he's stuck with taylor? barton on the right feeding carroll was the ONLY thing we had going for us for f***s sake Sure forget the fact that Ameobi (who Hughton played before) was injured against City and Nolan was suspended for this game, twist the facts all you want

Hughton who took a stronger team to Bolton and got dicked 5-1? Enough. Exactly people are making out as if Hughton was a Mourinho. Pardew is clearly average but he is no worse than Hughton. In fact I appreciate the fact that he tries to take initiative to change things around through substitutions when we are behind. How many minutes did Ranger get under Hughton?

Nothing to do with the fact that we pushed up higher to try and get the equalizer due to our numerical advantage and got caught on the break. Sure! You would prefer the Hughton way of just standing there looking smug and bringing on Ranger in the 85th minute, at least we won't lose our shape ya!

i've been saying this for a week now, he's come in and changed things that didnt need changing, and he's actively ruining what little edge we had. What exactly has he changed? Taken Barton off the wing for a start. Maybe that has had something to do with the fact that we had a combination of Ameobi out injured and Nolan suspended in the games he's managed. Who would you play in the middle if Barton is on the right? Guthrie? Smith?

anybody said that or you just love pointless exaggerations? its your attempt at sarcasm that deserves

anybody said that or you just love pointless exaggerations?

Yup would agree with that, we should not let opposing managers know of our possible lineups in advance.

You could possibly argue that Pardew is just keeping Carroll's feet on the ground but if you read the interview, he pretty much said what I was commenting above. That Carroll is exceptional in one part of his game but still has got to develop the other areas and is therefore not yet world class.

You are probably right on the second account because we are seen as a below average Premiership club who just got promoted, but there are quite a few better strikers (non English) that would be valued at below 30M. Carrol is good and has age on his side but by no means is he a world class striker, let alone a finished product. Disagree. This season, Carroll has been a world class striker. He's got 11 goals and 3 assists (and IIRC, that's not counting Sholas second in the derby and Bartons vs Liverpool) in 18 games in the league so far, and on top of that, he's winning pretty much everything in the air and I'd say that no defender that we've faced so far has been able to cope with him. I guess we will just disagree then, coz I don't rate him as a world class striker at all, and maybe it boils down to what we each mean by 'world class'. His is very much a one dimensional striker, though admittedly world class in that area. Despite some strikes with his feet, he has neither displayed enough skills to be an effective dribbler nor does he have the right technique to control the ball in tight situations and strike the ball from distance consistently. Carroll is excellent in the air, probably one of the best in terms of scoring, lay off and just generally winning the ball in the air but to me a world class striker is like Drogba, or Rooney and Torres (before this season) and Carrol is at least two notches below them at the moment. A world class striker also should be tested over time and be capable of scoring 20ish goals per season consistently over a few seasons. Shearer pre injury was world class. He might one day be a world class striker but for that to happen he has to consistently develop his overall game and not just depend on his strength in the air. You will find that both Hughton and Pardew would agree with the view that Carroll still has lots to learn, so I'm not quite sure how you can say that he is already world class. Yes he probably should get Young Player of the Year Award if he performs in the 2nd half of the season but ironically winning that award itself would imply that he has the potential to be the world class but not yet.

You are probably right on the second account because we are seen as a below average Premiership club who just got promoted, but there are quite a few better strikers (non English) that would be valued at below 30M. Carrol is good and has age on his side but by no means is he a world class striker, let alone a finished product.

Why can't we get a better striker than Carroll? Read that back to yourself and then say, "aaaaah right". No seriously, do you mean that 30M won't be enough to get a better striker or that a better striker won't come to us?