Shak

I seem to remember Shak dismantling the anti Souness agenda not too long before Souness was sacked. In my defense, I was off my face on drugs pretty much all the time back then.

He sounds like a wrestling bad guy.

What does he say about Guardiola? Still reckon if he could have been an absolute animal at Barca if his attitude had been right.

FWIW I share those doubts, the Ben Arfa issue is a big one for me. If he can't find a way to at least try to accommodate a talent like that in his team then it'll be real cause for concern.

VI, any rumours on who Barca will go after in the summer? Looks like Madrid are going to win La Liga, would you expect Barca to try and make a splash?

Of course there'd be more people expressing similar concerns if we were 10th. But we're not, we're significantly better off. Yes, we've been lucky at times this year and have probably overachieved a little, but you can't tell me we don't deserve to be in the top seven. Most people would consider that a massive success, look at the first few pages of the 'Battle for 7th' thread. Yes we have some good players at our disposal but so do most teams in the Premiership, before we signed Cisse we had exactly one striker who was Premiership standard, namely Ba. To say we're 6th due to the quality of our players alone is silly, we have some quality yes but we've also been starting rubbish/not good enough players like Williamson, Simpson, Ryan Taylor, Obertan, Shola and Best a lot this year, and our squad depth is desperate. The football is nowhere near as long ball orientated as we were under Allardyce btw, and it doesn't even compare to how disorganized we were under Souness. I agree that he needs to change some things, the Ben Arfa issue is very worrying for example. But to give him no credit for what we've done this year, which seems to be your viewpoint, is absurd. We were very up and down under Hughton. Some good performances yes but we also had some clueless performances. Remember Blackpool and Stoke at home? Awful stuff, the latter in particular was a game we lost due to Hughton being completely tactically naive and handing the game to our opponents. There was some nice bits of football thrown in there too, sure, but no more so than we do now IMO, you make it sound like we're completely route one under Pardew which is nonsense. We won at Arsenal due to the most route one goal of all time, great defending and our goalposts btw. Anyway, all this aside what would you propose doing? Send Pardew on his way and find someone else? Then if after a year we aren't getting good results and playing quality football we send that guy packing too? No manager would go near us. After the last few years under Ashley I doubt we're an attractive proposition as it is. Firing a manager who has massively overachieved because his football isn't pretty enough would be about the worst thing we could do right now.

I don't know why it would be better if a handsome man had done this, but somehow it would be.

Replacing Pardew. If we're still playing football like this in a couple of years then yes, by all means. But give the man a chance to build his own squad and then see what style of football we're playing. The midfield and attack of our strongest eleven when he took over was probably Barton Nolan Tiote Jonas Carroll Shola Can you honestly see that lot playing any sort of slick pass and move football? We were built to be a long ball team when he took over, you can't change that overnight, especially not if you want to have the kind of results we've managed this season. Let's give him some real time before we decide exactly what 'Alan Pardew Football' is, eh?

Ben Arfa can't get a game for us FFS. That France team is nowt to fear in any case.

I'm guessing Stu is somehow behind all of this.

I guess the theory is that it reflects badly on the FA if a player does things like this?

There's only one Zlatan!

Don't listen to them MW, go along and enjoy the game.

Roy doing a fine job representing the views of some of my thicker fellow countrymen on the matter. Keep it up mate.

Do you really not know?

Those signs can't have cost more than a fiver apiece like.

In terms of the individuals themselves, perhaps. No way he doesn't contribute quite a bit in terms of the type of players he wants though IMO, there'd be no sense at all in the board just going out and finding players they like and just throwing them at Pardew and telling him to make space for them somewhere.

If the last month has shown us anything it's that Tiote must always play. Always.

Don't think so Dave, always just been off the striker or else out right as far as i recall. He played LW in that game against Everton under Hughton I think, obviously he was shite so no sense trying that nonsense again.

Can see him as part of a midfield three, if Pardew wants to play a 4-5-1/4-3-3/4-2-3-1 long term then I could see him having a big role to play in the next few years. Doesn't seem to fit a 4-4-2 to at all though, aye.

What has Obertan ever done to warrant being classed as a better winger like? Maybe when he learns the rules and general aims of a game of football he'll be a useful player, he has some natural ability and pace is such an important asset for any wide man, but in terms of right now he's an absolute calamity of a footballer. Agree that Taylor should be no more than a utility man/squad player long term though, I'll be very disappointed if Pardew doesn't give Ben Arfa a go on the right against Wolves. If he's not comfortable doing it against that lot then I doubt he ever will be.

Happy for him, though personally I wouldn't want to start him against Wolves.

Jonas is shite in the middle though. Would love to see that too ATB, no chance though I reckon.

Aye Dave, think we should also start playing some better stuff now that we have Cisse. We haven't really had a striker who's a threat to get in behind the defense, Cisse gives us that. That should force teams to play a bit deeper and give us more space to play in. He also seems very much willing to work the channels and his movement seems quality, something the likes of Shola and Best didn't really give us. Pardew has said he wants to move towards a more pass and move based game, we haven't really seen it consistently so far but he's only been here just over a year. We were built to be a long ball team when he took over tbh, you can't change that overnight. Adding players like Cabaye, Ba and Cisse seems to signal that we want to play it on the deck more, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt in terms of his long term plans.

I'll be disappointed if we let him walk away for nothing. We've endured him being predominantly shite for years but he's finally showed some signs this year that he might be the player we hoped we were getting when he signed. I wouldn't want him to be first choice for us, but as a squad player we could do much, much worse. He's a great backup for Cabaye as a ball playing CM, honestly we haven't missed Cabaye all that much when he's been out. Tiote on the other hand is irreplaceable. His comments there make it sound a bit like he expects to start against Wolves though, and if he's after regular first team football in the long run then he should probably leave tbh.