Mick

That might also be down to the player's conditioning from the previous regime, I would be surprised if the mentality can be changed overnight. It took Keegan 8 games of dross before he got them to click following Allardyce's time as manager. Keegan took over mid season however. 8 games was roughly... 8 weeks, no? just came to post the same aye, mclaren has had the entire preseason like Preseason isn't the same as playing competitive games though. I don't know if you were expecting results overnight, but I said before the season started that I thought it would be a couple of months in before we started to take shape. If McClaren had come here in January we'd be a lot further forward IMO. That said, if we don't look any better in a month's time then he is obviously going to start coming under pressure. Just too early to draw much conclusion from 4 games and a pretty tough start. Unfortunately he will still be playing Anita and Colback in a month's time and that is the problem - it doesn't work and never will work and just about everyone can see it so why can't he. He might be able to see its not working but he might be trying to change one thing at a time.

Even if we are near the bottom, at least we can see our players stringing a few passes together which we've rarely done for the last 4 or 5 years. That isn't much but it's still progress and it's been a while since we're done anything positive.

Pardew is an arrogant prick and they're welcome to him. He was shit here, the bloke was a total fraud who had us playing shite negative football while trying to tell us he played front foot football.

Try mackems.

Who keeps saying that? I'm yet to hear anyone pundit other than Danny Mills say that it wasn't a red. Mick Lowes and John Anderson both said it wasn't a red card offence and that Mariner had got it wrong. Red card then. So Danny Mills isn't the only one who said it was't a red card.

Who keeps saying that? I'm yet to hear anyone pundit other than Danny Mills say that it wasn't a red. Mick Lowes and John Anderson both said it wasn't a red card offence and that Mariner had got it wrong.

If the results stay the way they are now he'll be sitting 2nd top and we'll be 3rd bottom.

He's still on 8 out of 10 from me, we've lost again but we've handled ourselves well and would have crumbled last season and we didn't. Our football is definitely showing some really good sings of improvement and we can take a lot from today, even if we came out of it with no points. I think we're learning and the good times aren't too far away. We'll start picking up points soon but we could do without any more red cards so we can get our best team (whatever that is) working together.

Pardew classes games against the top teams as being free games, McClaren sees them the way they are, a challenge. He's said everything this week that I would have hoped he'd say.

I hope McClaren loses some of his cautious approach and I think he will once things settle down after a few more games. We're far better with the ball and actually don't treat it as if it's going to blow up.

He's definitely bringing about an improvement in our game. Last nights result should be a massive kick in the bullocks to anybody who thought Pardew was handicapped when it came to cup games. We've fielded teams in the past that should have been capable of winning and we've lost. So far McClaren gets 8 out of 10 from me and I hope he keeps it going.

It's got nothing to do with Northampton and more to do with our players gaining confidence and getting used to playing with each other in a competitive game. Also, that team is the same type we put out last season, the only difference is that we've got a bit more strength in depth when it comes to quality.

That team goes against what he was saying the other day, I wonder if he was just trying to sell tickets?

You've said yourself that you hadn't watched the game yesterday yet you're having a go at people for how they reacted against Swansea (feeling self righteous) because of our result against Man U which you hadn't/haven't even seen.

That's what happens when you have Ben Arfa in your team, he's a useless fat bastard who is unwilling to defend.

We are not only seeing our game change, we're also seeing him making changes to the starting 11. Dropping Cisse must have been a difficult decision but it was the right one and he made it. So far, the changes are refreshing and it will take time before all of the wrongs are righted.

I wouldn't use him to make glue out of.

I would after today and I was totally against us lining up that way. I hate seeing players doing well and getting dropped just because another player comes back unless the player coming back is a player you can't do without.

Janmaat shouldn't walk straight back into the team, players coming in should be motivated by knowing a good game keeps them in the team.

He's going to be a top player when he settles into the game and gets up to pace with the premiership.

We've now played 3 games and I think we've seen a big improvement in 2 of those. You can see clearly that he is changing the way we play and he just needs to tweak his starting 11 to get the best out of what he has available to him. Some of his substitutions look weird but he might just need to see us improve a bit more before he tries more positive changes. Overall, he's doing quite well so far. Lose Colback and Obertan from the starting 11 and things will look even better because so far I don't see what he's seeing in them.

We also nearly lost it. I thought it was wrong to bring Tiote on for anybody other than Colback as we just invited them onto us more than we had and we could have easily came away with nothing. In the end it worked so I don't want to criticise him for it, I still didn't agree and have said so.

Did he think bringing Tiote on was going to win us the game?

He had to.