tmonkey

Pellegrini has absolutely choked here. City must be playing this lax on purpose with a view to "going for it" in the second half when Barca are tired.

Could hear a pin drop at the Etihad.

Good finish but the quality of football in this game is shocking for the players on show.

What have they done to Suarez?

Barcelona clearly need Williamson up front.

http://seooasis.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/So-It-Begins-Image.gif

http://i.imgur.com/oIGAOtP.gif

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/craig-bellamy-bust-up-john-carver-4041860 http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/85/england/2013/03/19/3838666/newcastle-assistant-john-carver-charged-with-misconduct-by http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/watch-fans-call-apologies-after-7773979 http://sackpardew.com/articles/statements/statement-john-carver/ Managerial calibre fit for NUFC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2VCwBzGdPM

Player-managers.

http://media.giphy.com/media/Ph2EUpM4KAmAM/giphy.gif

Can't sleep because of this news. Hurry up and leave you cunt.

Imagine the devastation if this doesn't happen now

Wonga. Puma.

Anyway, I'm sure this was when he first took over, but the season after us sacking him, Blackburn appointed Big Sam when they were in the relegation zone. Big Sam's solution to the problem was to just stick Christopher Samba - a centreback - up front for 90 minutes and shamelessly play classic Allardyce all-out hoofball to get out of, and stay out of, the relegation zone. It worked well, Sam won plaudits for turning things around whilst we were relegated (and he was getting on his high horse about us sacking him iirc), but I remember thinking without Samba he'd have been f***ed as that's the only get-out clause he had when the chips were down. Stick a giant battering ram up front and tell the team to "just boot it". We didn't have a Christopher Samba. Hence why we'd have been in big trouble under Sam - there was no easy get-out clause for him here. Hoofing it to Owen/Smith/Martins sounds hilarious now, but that's what actually happened (Viduka was useless in this area too). Thinking back, I just can't see how anyone can suggest there was definitely no risk of relegation under Fat Sam given what we were witnessing at the time.

Keegan got 17 points from 16 games - W4 D5 L7 - and that's with the team slowly starting to play "football" again. What makes you think Sam would have gotten near that with the same group of players he was badly mis-managing and had lost the confidence of? All it would have taken is two less wins and one less draw. As stated, beyond the diminishing morale/performance levels and the increasingly difficult fixture list, simply sticking Big Sam's boy wonder Alan Smith up front for the rest of the season (Keegan stuck with him initially then dropped him) could have been enough to drop more than 7 points, let alone the rest of the team being unable to pass the ball or look like a semi-competent side. A slide towards relegation was a distinct possibility based on what we were witnessing on the pitch. If you disagree, fair enough, but to call is bollocks/mongish is nonsense.

We had 23 points early January 2009. Kinnear had never been relegated either. We all know how that ended (relegated with 34 points), and it's testament to what can happen if morale drops under a stubborn/shit/clueless manager and the team falls into a rut from which it never recovers. In terms of Allardyce, I thought we were definitely headed towards a relegation battle under him. Team looked awful by January - no morale, no shape, players looked lost/clueless as though thrown onto the pitch together for the first time, no idea how they meant to go about getting goals - in fact I'd argue at that stage we were even worse than the side that actually did get relegated a year later. Fat Sam persisting with Alan fucking Smith up front, which he did in practically every game he could field him in, would have been enough to wipe out that difference between the 43 points we ended the season with and the 36 points that got teams relegated. On top of this, iirc we had a relatively kind fixture list in the first half of the season (we had nearly all the top teams at the time at home), with the more troublesome fixtures from December onwards, hence why the table looked OK in terms of points alone in January but didn't tell the full picture. Which is why it was always bollocks whenever pundits, professionals, Fat Sam himself, etc, put forward the "it was unfair to sack Sam when he was 11th in the table" - a cursory, retrospective glance at the table doesn't tell you what state the team was in nor what fixtures had taken place/were yet to come.

"Risk of trying to score goals" is what he clearly means. Which entirely fits with his mentality as a manager, i.e. seeing any game-plan that seeks to get us actively looking to score goals as being something that will result in us conceding them. A.k.a. the pessimistic coward's approach to football. Hence why we try to shut up shop if we're a goal ahead, with clear instructions to not go for a second goal. Or, as with today, why we don't actively look to score goals until we're behind. Too "risky" to aim to score goals unless there's nothing to lose.

Hernan Crespo style flicked backheel finish from a low cross.

Carr unearths yet another gem.

If that was a more fashionable striker the commentators would have creamed themselves over that finish.

Early days of course, but he's looked quite a bit better than Tiote in these two games imo. Looks very switched on positionally, makes useful tackles and interceptions like a good ball winner should without taking silly risks, seems smart under pressure, and plays simple passes with hints of decent ability to spread the ball into space. Pretty much what you want in a good sitting midfielder. Fully deserves a run of games in the first team now. Would be great if what we've seen is his actual playing level. Would be even better if Pardew doesn't fuck this up by going for his favorites.

Decent win against a miserable Liverpool side, minor credits to Pardew for picking Abeid, throwing Rolando on, and dropping Gouffran. But still, we've been here before. Yet another win where we sit back at home, look to hit on the break, and hope the rub of the green favors us because we're unable to create anything until the opposition start pushing forward and we start being more effective on the break. It worked today, Moreno's blunder setting up a goal for Aoyze (i.e. standard Pardew scrappy lucky goal favoring us), and Liverpool were pretty damn awful. But it's important to note that it was Liverpool taking the game to us that opened the game up, not the other way around - for 60+ minutes the game was about as dull as you can get because we were content to just sit back and let them come onto us. So as has always been the case when we've been in good "form" scraping these kinds of results, this way of playing is not sustainable. It's overly reliant on the opposition being s*** and unable to take advantage of being invited to attack, and furthermore wastes the talent we clearly do have. There's alot a good manager could work with to fashion and hone a team that can maintain useful possession and create chances - we really have the squad to be a pretty decent/formidable upper mid table side. But again, we all know this as we've seen this all before under Pardew.

Standard Pardew gameplan this. Sit back, counter attack, try hard, hope we get the "lucky break".