Sifu

1-0 to Blackburn. Wooop.

I predict a Yakubu hat trick tonight (I'm basing this on nothing, haha).

aye, the unlucky orange shirt worn only once away at Blackburn in the cup co-incIding with our 1st defeat of the season. Tbf, it was a draw after 90 minutes (A loss is a loss though )

And Ashley Cole doesn't get punished for shooting a youth player with an air rifle. Nice.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17433293

Full back or Centre back? cant say i have a clue who he is tbh. I think we were linked with him a few months ago. 19/20 year old CB iirc. EDIT: QBG

Must. Acquire.

Seriously, terminate his contract. Enough is enough.

Pretty much. The Independent has been very tabloid-y for a while now, so I wouldn't say that they're very reliable these days. Shame, it used to be a decent newspaper.

Completely agree with your post, High Five o/. I, for one, don't want to see Pardew sacked whatsoever. If we finish strongly this season (ie. a top 6/7 finish with the possibility of Europa League qualification), then he definitely has my support for next season. Finishing in such a position will represent massive progress for us and one which we should/have to build on. What I've highlighted in bold has quite a bit of substance imo, Pardew and the lads will get a whole summer to properly reflect on the good and the bad from this season. We'll hopefully build on the good and learn/improve from the bad. If, over the course of next season, it turns out we're making little progress and/or actually moving backwards, then massive questions about Pardew will be rightly raised (his future may even be called into question). As it stands though, the season's not over yet and there's still some work/a job to be done. Clearly, we need some work on our play/tactics, I'm not excusing Pardew for our "performances" these past few months - he's been very poor in this aspect and he needs to change his mentality and fast. So what I'll say is, I do/still have faith in Pardew and I do want the man to succeed. Fingers crossed.

Maybe it's a bit of both? I don't know really, no-one does. From what I gather though, Saylor seems to be well-liked in the squad (I know he's had some issues in the past but it does seem to me that this season, he is a respected member of the squad).

On the Jonas at LB thing, this is a quote from Jonas yesterday: Now, I'm not defending Pardew's (second half) tactics yesterday btw but it seems to me that Pardew (at first anyway) wanted to go for it so maybe that's why he opted for such an attacking lineup yesterday? I guess it could also the case that Jonas has a better track record for assists from the left so maybe that's the reason why Santon was on the bench? I'm not picking at his decision to deploy Jonas at left-back who I actually thought had a very good game at both ends. My criticism is with his decision to deploy Cabaye narrow on the left which gave Jonas little cover nor much support in attack. These things can have adverse knock on effects elsewhere on the pitch and that happened a few times as Colo had to leave the centre to help Jonas defend against his man or to help recover possession down that flank. Can you imagine the damage someone like Holt could have done in the centre up againts Williamson with Colo away from that area? More worryingly is despite Norwich getting some joy down that side, Cabaye continued in that narrow position. Pardew either didn't spot it, did and thought nowt of it or simply had no tactical answer to it. What gets me is both Jonas and Colo himself had words with Cabaye during the game. I must say, I feel a tad concerned with his form and role in the side. He played well in parts against Norwich especially when we were on the ball and playing it around but there was clear insutructions at one point to ping it long quarter-back style and Cabaye looked frustrated. I think the reasoning for Cabaye playing in such a position was to give him a bit more freedom to attack. This kinda explains why Jonas was pretty much doing the attacking and defending on his own. From what I saw, for the first 15 minutes or so, it looked as if we were playing 3 in midfield - which is what Yohan was used to last season at Lille so maybe Pardew was trying to replicate that. It is quite clear that Cabaye hasn't been in the best of form recently but yesterday was one of his better games (certainly better than his recent outings) so maybe, Pardew was trying to get Cabaye's confidence back when he decided to put Yohan in a narrow-left role? I know I'm making a lot of assumptions here but I'm trying to explain Pardew's (admittedly bizarre) system/line up yesterday. It worked to an extent but also had quite a few failings (the lack of cover for Jonas as you've pointed out). Clearly, a bit of work needs to be done.

On the Jonas at LB thing, this is a quote from Jonas yesterday: Now, I'm not defending Pardew's (second half) tactics yesterday btw but it seems to me that Pardew (at first anyway) wanted to go for it so maybe that's why he opted for such an attacking lineup yesterday? I guess it could also the case that Jonas has a better track record for assists from the left so maybe that's the reason why Santon was on the bench?

No doubt about that but I do think we are missing Steven Taylor for his role as an on-pitch leader (for reasons I described above). For me, there was something about Saylor's presence on the pitch that just demonstrated leadership. Saylor also seems to be the club's vice-captain too so he surely has some sort of influence on the other lads?

So Russia 2018......

Fantastic news that :)

There's this: Haha! There's goals in the fixture but strangely enough it's not often a high quality game. For some irritating reason, we have a habit of letting some hitherto unknown WBA player become a superstar when we roll up. Just had a look there, the last time we won at the Hawthorns was the relegation season and yep, it was a high scoring game! We won 3-2.

Thought the plaque was better than the individual Intertoto trophies: http://www.intertoto-cup.org/images/intertotocup_sml.gif

I honestly don't think Perch has the capabilities to be an effective CB. If the opposition is more known to attack along the ground (and through the middle), then fair enough, Perch might be able to do some sort of job at CB but really though, Perch is more prone to mistakes in this position imo. The way I see it is that there's a lot more responsibility involved at CB, that is, the player needs to be able to deal with crosses, set pieces or even high balls and be able to read the game effectively. I think that Perch's main weakness is dealing with crosses, we saw that against Norwich in December - his anticipation in tracking the intended target is rather slow imo. I know our defensive situation isn't so great atm especially with Williamson lacking in confidence and form but, like it or not, Willo is our best option there. Perch's best role is DM, the anchorman. He's shown that he's able to break up the opposition's play effectively and has known to play it simple (a good thing btw) when deployed in such a position. Think he prefers playing there too. As it stands though, for me, Perch's roles for us should be to cover DM and the fullback positions. Playing him at CB should be the absolute last resort imho.

Good signs

From what I gather, the story is pretty much this: When Shola came on, he told Cabaye to push up into a position just behind Ba, ie. it was instructions to attack. When Gosling came on though, Cabaye was then pretty much told to hang back and let Gosling play in an advanced role. Yohan was understandably unimpressed. Nothing major to worry about imo.

Moved up to 128th place. My top 100 dream is still on (haha).

He was a lot better today than his recent outings imo. Wasn't his best game by any means but he was definitely a lot more influential today than against Arsenal (especially in an attacking sense), some nice passes here and there - has to be said though, we haven't seen that Cabaye for a while.

Can't be said enough tbh.

Magedia in full force I see.