stozo

Absolutely bonkers. Increasingly seeing a number of managers sacked for virtually no reason. Good to know there's good options available if we need to get rid of Pardew (not that I think we should).

84 points. Hazard with 38 and Lambert with 14.

Makes sense us bringing him in as it effectively allows us to gamble on two players as I assume if Haidara comes in it would allow us to loan Ferguson out somewhere, which he really needs if he's ever going to make it.

http://englishfootballpatient.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/what-happened-to-newcastle/ Interesting blog. In short it says that much of our strong season last year could have been down to luck.

It's just difficult to see where we are going to start progressing and keep progressing, we always seem to take those 3 steps back and take years to recover. This club should be fighting every single season in the top 8 and this season we have been embarrassing against teams like Reading, Norwich, Villa, West Ham, Southampton, West Brom - it's a fucking joke tbh - we are the worst footballing team in the league and a total laughing stock Really don't want to bite but get a grip. QPR, Villa, Reading undoubtedly been worse than us this season. You say we should be top 8 every single season, we're currently only 10 points off that despite us having a poor season. You've got to be mad to say things haven't really improved in recent years. Even before relegation I think our team was worse than it is now and that team certainly cost a lot more to assemble than this one.

Expecting us to confirm he's leaving this evening just to top this day off...

Frustrating but pleased we're not going to match a stratospheric QPR offer. If he wants to move to QPR that's his decision and we should move on to other targets.

I'm surprised Ashley hasn't intervened to encourage him to go to QPR - 6 months at QPR, relegation release clause, we sign him for free in summer. Guess who wins again...

To be fair I think the club has been trying to loan several of them but other clubs have deemed them not good enough. Mate who supports Charlton said they looked at Abeid at the start of season but didn't rate him.

A nice little stat to show the difference Debuchy could make - We've allowed the 6th most chances in the league from down our right flank. To compare with the other areas of our defence on chances conceeded down the middle we've conceeded the 11th most in the league and on chances conceeded down the left we've conceeded the 13th most in the league.

Almost forgot we had a game tomorrow with all the transfer talk.

For a "diplomatic" manager that's a pretty hefty slap in Simpson's face, with the whole 'putting Santon under pressure' and 'lacking quality'. As fans, that's things we see and think (and say on here ad nauseum), but quotes like these let us know that Pardew sees it too. The difference is that Pardew can't go to a presser and say "Simpson was fucking shit", because Pardew would need to play him the next week and the player would know his boss has no faith in him... Don't really have a problem with Pardew saying it as (a) it's bang on the money and (b) Simpson will probably only play for us a handful of times before he leaves in the summer (assuming he doesn't leave in January).

Feel for him with the Cisse thing - he'll have prepared with Ba in the middle and to lose him on the day of the game makes things very difficult. To accommodate Cisse in middle he'd have had to change the formation from the one which he has prepared the team to play.

Need clarity in this situation now. If I were in the board's position I'd sign Remy ASAP and then tell Ba he won't play for us again until either he removes the clause from his contract or leaves. It's simply not acceptable that in a month of 5 crucial games Ba could abandon us at any point in our preparations for those games.

Should have been Marv for Perch, as well as Obertan for Jonas. So you'd have started Obertan after he's not played for a month and a half?

Well bollocks like. I supported him and stuck up for him but now i want him gone. Many reason but the main one is the fucking dreadful long ball footbal we have had to watch this season so far (last few game have been better). He deserve everything he gets, just because he made good subs today ?. What after fucking up the starting line up, what about the dreadful play, lack of movement, poor crossing and the rest of the shite i just watched. He is proving a shit long ball merchant manager. I'm judging this over months and not just a few games by the way. Don't doubt he's made some poor decisions over the last few months and needs to take his fair share of the blame. You've admitted yourself there though that the football has improved in the last few games. Also we played mainly only the ground for the first hour today and really didn't create anything. Would love to know who you think would come in and have us playing great football with the team we had out today - let alone put up with the fact that the board have near total control over transfers.

Wrong starting line up though. I agree - I would have liked to see Marv start. Amoebi was the player who had the most impact though and people on here would have had a meltdown if he'd started instead of Cisse (and I'd argue he's much more effective as a sub than starting).

Have to say some people on here seem to have developed a pathological hatred of Pardew. The 3 subs he made today swung the game in our favour so I'm stunned to come on here and see some people rubbishing him as a manager. After the first subs on 60 mins there was only one team that was going to win the game. Considering we've not actually won a game against a team playing with 11 men for almost 2 months we did exactly what we needed to do today. Never looked like conceeding and then went for them in the last 30 minutes. Not brilliant stuff but efficient and effective. Would I like us to have been sharper in the first hour? Yes. But considering the low base we're coming from today was a step forward and Pardew does deserve some credit for that (in the same way he deserves some criticism for where we are in the league).

Can we have a poll - how many pages does this thread get to before Remy signs?

Could do a lot worse than Lescott on loan for the rest of the season. Wouldn't be much of a long-term option but if we're not willing to splash the cash on a new CB in January then having Lescott until the end of the season could make a real difference. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/dec/17/joleon-lescott-manchester-city-mario-balotelli

Completely the right approach to take if there is still concern over the scan despite no pain. Last thing we can afford is for him to play, tear his hamstring and be out for 3 months.

Overall performance-wise I think he's pretty low down on the list of people to blame for our current slide but harsh truth is he's been at fault for both the winning goals against Fulham and Stoke.

Not going to win so drop some of the players who deserve to be dropped. Marv and Perch in for Tiote and Jonas.

The only highlight from tonight was two off the line from corners.

Ruiz is out injured.