TRon

That would be mint. The amount of Liverpool fans I hear pining for this option on Talksport makes me believe they seriously deserve him.

As he's seemingly here for the next 12months+, why don't you want the club to progress? He might be a bit doubtful whether Pardew is the right man to be handed a transfer kitty. I know I was when Kinnear was given the money during the last premier window in Jan. Hopefully Pardew will be a bit more clued up than Kinnear but I still feel nervous.

The senior players are given a lot of time and respect in the dressing room. They are seen as important figures at a massive premier league club - why would they have a problem with that? Obviously fans have a slightly different viewpoint as we are now coming to terms with scrapping at the bottom of the pile for transfers and we know we won't be going for the top players as opposed to a few years ago.

He's done nothing wrong Nothing wrong with laying down the law I agree...sometimes it needs to be done. Some people can do it quietly and effectively like Alex Ferguson. Others like to make a public show of their hard man credentials like Graeme Souness. The spirit in the camp seems ok at the moment but the next couple of games should tell us a lot whether Pardew is more like Fergie or Souness.

Same. Nothing to say he'll be the same player, and even if he is this strikes me more of Ashley seeing an opportunity to make easy money out of a resale rather than to improve us beyond the short term. Same as Gosling. I don't really care what the reasons are, Ben Arfa signing on a permanent transfer would be great news and more than we could have expected given this regime's previous transfer history.

Greenwich mean time

it really is as simple as that.

The ones where he cheaply gives the ball to the opposition who then attack our goal and upon occasion actually score against us. Blackburn and Man City. Attempting to keep possession and pass the ball does have it's drawbacks. A sliding tackle and a welly up the pitch would definitely be safer (until the ball came back).

Taylor is too rash and the defence doesn't hold its position because he's erratic. He doesn't even do the basics like looking along the line so see where the others are and the off-side which was working well seems to now be history. People mentioned that our defence played a high line earlier in the season but it was effective because we regularly stepped out to play the off-side. Taylor seems to be in la-la land as far as his fellow defenders go. This is my view as well. Taylor is ok in a Hollywood sense, but there doesn't seem to be much understanding with his partners in my opinion. Maybe I'm just looking at it wrong but beyond the pointing and arm waving, Taylor quite often looks rash and not the best at man marking for me.

For me that's one of the big tests of Pardew's judgement as a manager. If he's proven right then kudos to him. If not then he'll be history sooner rather than later.

I am pretty sure Pardew used the Taylor contract situation as a chance to stamp his own mark on the team, one which he thought would go down well with the fans because Steve is a local lad. Plus he might actually rate him...how much of him he's seen is the important question.

If that's because the Taylor/Colo combo is keeping him out of the team on form then no arguments.

He had 2 class players on his hands and didn't recognise it, I don't see how that is harsh at all. Teves was hardly unknown when he was brought over to this country. Agreed. He wasn't our manager then but my impression of him during that time was he was a clueless loudmouth a la Graeme Souness. He should be given time to prove it's not the case but it's up to him to change that perception. A manager who can't recognise a class player at his own club really must be dense in all honesty.

Pardew couldn't get the best out of Teves and Mascherano, he's got no chance with Smith and Perch. Forget Smith and Perch, at the moment all Pardew needs to do is get the best out of Barton, Carroll and Williamson. That's all Hughton had to work with and we managed to play some half decent stuff with them in the team before. We've had blips before so there is no point in knee-jerking, but as has been mentioned before, I hope we aren't going to go through the process of Pardew learning about his players...stuff which most of us have been well aware of for a long time.

Didn't see today's game but he was our best midfielder against City. The Talksport commentator reckoned he was good today as well. I think our fans are just getting a bit blase about him these days and are picking faults instead of appreciating the quality.

Hypothetical situation: Carroll/Nolan (one of the two) is seriously injured in the Wigan match. Ruled out for the rest of the season. Is this squad capable of soaking up this said hypothetical injury? Depends who we get in to replace them with. Which means no-one can answer you in this thread. Bad times. Erm, we're not replacing him. That was the whole point of the question. Is the current squad capable of soaking up injuries to key players? If it's not - obviously it isn't - then there is a definite need to strengthen. So yeah, try harder next time. Strengthening would mean bringing in players who are better than we've got currently on the bench. Maybe we can get someone in on loan as I can't see us spending the necessary money. Redknapp wants to loan out Keane but that would probably mean us selling Carroll to Spurs in the summer. In which case I'd rather take my chances on Carroll staying fit.

Like I said, I hope Pardew's judgement on players is proven right.

What else do you think he provides...the finesse? He's composed, reads the game well and has good timing in the tackle. He's not bad in the air either, which is what I was getting at originally. Better than Taylor in any case, and a lot stronger.

Not really sure that the sort of money we'll spend will improve the squad much tbh. If Pardew can get the best out of the players here we should be ok for this season. He needs to lose the fixation with humping the ball long to Carroll at every opportunity and get us back to the passing football we are capable of playing.

Shame. I have a lot of time for Ranger as a player but if he's turning up late for training you have to question his application, or worse, his lifestyle if he can't get out of bed early enough to get to the ground in time.

What else do you think he provides...the finesse?

But Williamson seems to gel a lot better with Colo as he provides the muscle and Colo the anticipation and reading of the game. Taylor does neither really, but points and waves a lot.

Forget the result today, what Pardew will ultimately be judged on is his decisions regarding players. Taylor is obviously rated very highly by him, something I don't agree with, so that worries me in the same way Souness' proclamations of greatness about certain players did. Let's hope Pardew's judgement is proven right and we don't end up losing precious points because Taylor and Coloccini was a disaster in the premiership last time round.

The guff about Taylor earlier this week had me thinking exactly this.

I'll be gob-smacked if the bit about HBA is true, but if Taylor is ready to sign a new contract fair play. I doubt Ashley would pay over the odds in wages so a compromise must have been reached.