Mick

The treatment of manual workers is terrible, I was watching a house getting built outside of where I was staying and at midday dozens stood in a line side by side to get the shade from a telegraph pole and I'm not joking about that. The only respite from the heat of the direct sun was something which just happened to be around at the time.

This should be in here, even if it doesn't contain any graphs. http://blog.paddypower.com/2013/09/27/neville-southall-newcastle-are-a-great-club-but-pardew-is-an-excuse-maker/?AFF_ID=16562 Neville Southall: Newcastle are a great club, but Pardew is an excuse-maker Neville Southall was never afraid to speak his mind as a player and his column for the Paddy Power Blog is no different. This week he looks at Newcastle and Everton’s good start to the season I always loved playing Newcastle. They’re the best fans I’ve ever seen in my life. They turn up whether the team is top of the league or bottom of the league. It was always a game I looked forward to because their fans were brilliant. To make it at Newcastle, you need a bit of class and you need to graft because that’s what the Geordies appreciate. You need to work for their respect. The team have always played the right way. They’ve had some brilliant players and managers, Kevin Keegan, Alan Shearer, Bobby Robson – even if he couldn’t get your name right, he was brilliant – one of the best in the history of British football. Now they’ve got a good squad, but I have doubts about the manager. Alan Pardew makes excuse after excuse when they lose. Even before they played Manchester City he was blaming Yohann Cabaye because he was supposedly on the verge of joining Arsenal. Obviously playing City away from home isn’t easy, but going into the game he seemed to have made his mind up that they were going to lose.

He's got his own thread, even if he's not worthy of one.

http://www.shieldsgazette.com/sport/football/newcastle-united/di-matteo-not-keen-on-sunderland-but-has-eye-on-pardew-s-newcastle-job-1-6085627 Di Matteo not keen on Sunderland – but has eye on Pardew’s Newcastle job! Published on the 26 September 2013 08:20 ROBERTO Di Matteo does not fancy the vacant Sunderland job – amid rumours he would prefer to be Newcastle United manager. The former West Brom and Chelsea boss was installed as the early favourite to succeed Paolo di Canio when the Black Cats’ head coach was ousted from his job on Sunday night. But the Swiss-born Italian is unconvinced that the bottom-of-the-league club is the right move for him next, in the wake of having led Chelsea to Champions League success in his previous job. Di Matteo was surprisingly sacked by Roman Abramovich last November, having given the Blues the Champions League trophy and the FA Cup in his eight months in charge. The 43-year-old has spent the last 10 months taking a break from the game and considering his next challenge, and sources close to the Italian suggest he does not see Sunderland as it. There have though been rumours that Di Matteo feels that Alan Pardew’s job at Newcastle could soon come up, and he is biding his time for that position. Di Matteo has links to Sunderland through Roberto De Fanti. He is an acquaintance of the Black Cats’ Director of Football and De Fanti is believed to have seen Di Matteo as the obvious choice to succeed Di Canio. But with Sunderland receiving no encouragement from the ex-Blues boss so far, the club is now casting its net far and wide. No appointment is likely before the weekend with Kevin Ball expected to be in the dug-out for the game against Liverpool and the ex-skipper could also be in charge when Manchester United come to visit. Owner Ellis Short reacted quickly in removing Di Canio after the player revolt on Sunday showed that relations between the head coach and his players had broken down beyond repair. But that has not allowed the club any time to prepare and immediately install a successor. Short had already concluded that the Italian had to go after the a dreadful start to the season culminated in the 3-0 defeat at West Brom on Saturday. But he and the board thought they would have the breathing space of the Liverpool and Man United games to find the right replacement as head coach. The current situation is not ideal but with Kevin Ball – a candidate for the job himself – doing a fine job as interim head coach, the club is still likely to take its time and consider all options before replacing Di Canio.

The place has been spoiled anyway, it's now just like any other city now except it's been done on a grander scale.

It happens all over the gulf, I remember when loads died at Jebel Ali in Dubai when they were digging out the harbour.

Why do you feel you need to defend any of that? I'm not going to cover each one because it's all been done a million times but the UEFA one does stand out. Pardew claimed the squad he went into the season with was good enough to challenge for a CL place so he was happy with the squad when he was defending Ashley and Llambias. We made loads of changes between European and domestic games and he had the cheek to use tiredness for the mackem defeat and Mick Lowes mentioned how many players hadn't featured in the game and he said those were rusty, he can't even remember his own bullshit. We had injuries and that is fair enough when we're playing teams like Man U, they were meaningless against Reading when we had a team out that should have been more than capable of winning. Why pick the 10 games after the new year? What about losing at home 3-0 to the mackems and 6-0 to Liverpool, they were both after new year.

We did the same at times last season when we were able to look decent for short periods of games.

The Hull game and the Man City game were both typical of last season, so far we're no different. I'm glad he was angry but I don't think that will make a difference because he's part of the problem. The only way his anger will help is if it's with himself rather than with others because he needs to look inwardly to recognise what we do wrong. We're far too negative and we've seen that all before. You blame the players for that but not when we do things wrong as a team. We were positive last night and hopefully that's a sign of things to come, it is just as likely to be a one off against a team from a lower division, we'll see.

A bloke unfairly having a go at our players last night has nothing to do with Pardew being fairly pulled apart.

To be honest I think somebody who defends something he doesn't seem to like is odd. Now to your questions, I don't think he has many redeemable features, he's handled Cabaye and Coloccini wanting away quite well but I would expect most managers to have handled both the same way. As for learning, he probably has but he's just as likely to repeat mistakes as he's done so many times.

I think everybody has praised him at some point, I've done it and I can't stand him. I'll not defend him because he works for Ashley, that's his choice and in making that choice he's accepted what he gets or doesn't get. Defending Pardew doesn't help the club if he's still here because of those defending him, not that it will make any difference doing so on here. If the crowd turns against him and he goes we could end up with a better manager as easily as we could end up with a worse one, even if only because of the law of averages being on our side. I'm not convinced that Kinnear is the king in waiting and I do think that Kinnear will recognise a better manager than Llambias or Ashley, getting one will not be as easy but that would be a start. What I do know is that for much of the time Pardew has been here we've played shite, even when finishing 5th and we're almost into his 3rd year at the club. This season has been indifferent and can't be seen as being any better than last because we've seen nothing to suggest so yet, at least nothing that we didn't see last season at some point.

I've noticed a few claiming that they don't defend him, while defending him.

Why do you spend so much time defending him if the bit in bold is true? Don't reply because of targets the club set him because that's bollocks. Any target set for him by the club is simply that and has nothing to do with what we as fans want.

Christ, I thought I was going OTT.

Of course Cabaye has contributed more, he's played more games. As for the difference in consistency, Cabaye has been up and down but he gets away with it, Marveaux doesn't.

If you try to read it in it's true meaning, yes. In reality, no, he just isn't very good at using English.

I think we'll get a point and Ben Arfa will get our goal in a 1-1 draw.

Happy face is not including the Man City game for Pardew which is odd. We lost the game last season and I expected nothing from the game, I would have settled for at least seeing something which suggested an improvement. I have seen nothing yet to get overly excited about because you could probably find 20 minutes from a game last season to match the last 20 against Fulham and you could find a game to match the Villa win. We might do better this season than we did last season and we should. Will it will be enough to justify keeping Pardew, I doubt it.

I thought Debuchy had good games against Fulham and Villa.

It clearly was for us. We're s***.

If I appear that way to people like you, then I'm doing something right.

Mick may come across that way but deep down he's a canny lad and his heart is in the right place. Thanks, I think.

People can form an opinion on something which goes against any targets the club set him you know.

You probably should have.