Mick

I think it might be worth ignoring anything that Pardew has to say before the match because I doubt his negativity will get to the players at all.

Agreed, after all he's never negative.

He was on the radio today and he said that he couldn’t influence games until the later stages anyway.

The only thing we have to fear tomorrow is ourselves.

If they do push up we just have to hit some angled balls over the top for Cisse to run onto.

The fans have a massive part to play tomorrow, the atmospheare was much more pleasant last season than the season before and we made it easier for the mackems, we need to hate them and show it.

It's most likely lies. http://www.readytogo.net/smb/showthread.php?t=773945

2 mackems in the BBC Newcastle studio predict mackem wins, 2 Newcastle fans predict a draw.

Pardew has just claimed that he can't influence the game until late in the game and Ben Arfa might get the last 30 to 35 minutes if required.

The mackem currently on BBC Newcastle has a horrible accent. And he's a cock.

I can't wait for this game, I wish it was being played tomorrow and at the same time I'm glad that it's being played on Sunday. Hopefully we're going to play like we did when at our best on Thursday because they'll not be able to live with us if that's the way that we play. I think we'll piss it if we're up for it. We've had a season which has been more down than up and Sunday is a chance for us to head towards the end of season on a high.

All of those match going mackems know a "Plastic Mag."

Did I say that we could attack like the last 20 minutes for the full 90?

I don't know what Pardew has or hasn't said but that really is a one sided outlook. Can the opponents not score after the 70th minute? As it was the game was over when they scored because we had absolutely no chance of scoring twice in the remaining time. That wouldn't have been the case if they'd scored during the first 70 minutes. It would have been a tough ask but it was a possibility that we could have come back, we didn't have that option later on.

Our opponents on sunday last qualified for Europe 40 years ago so I wouldn't take qualification for granted.

Getting rid of him.

We did some things better than usual, I was quite impressed with some of our passing and attacking. We actually looked as if we'd done some work on both. before the introduction of ben arfa/marveaux? I thought we played the ball around well until Shola came on and then after the two you've mentioned came on. The better attacking was with Ben Arfa and Marveaux.

We did some things better than usual, I was quite impressed with some of our passing and attacking. We actually looked as if we'd done some work on both.

I think the cheating calls come across as sour grapes, the keeper took his time but how often has Krul done that and been congratulated for it? They won cheap free kicks, unfortunately that's the way football is played in other countries and the referee was the one who gave the decisions. Jonas wins some borderline decisions and we are quite happy to accept them, I know I am. We don't play that way by default like foreign teams and I'm glad but let's not pretend that the game in this country hasn't changed, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Did they do anything worse than Joey Barton did against Arsenal when he hit the deck to get a player sent off? Did any Benfica play act any worse than Taylor does when he tries to cheat (when acting as if shot) when handling the ball? I don't like any play acting, we're not squeaky clean though, even if we're not as bad.

We would almost never lose if we played in Portugal. I didn't say that we couldn't get our tactics right and still fail.

I hope tonight (last night now) hasn't taken too much out of the players, they looked both physically and mentally knackered. I hope my voice returns for the game as it's just about gone at the minute.

Unless our tactics were to draw 1-1 or avoid defeat, they failed, they weren't spot on. If we had attacked from the first whistle we may have lost drawn or won, nobody knows. We all know that what we have tried didn't work, much as they haven't many times before. Shola coming on is another repeated failure and one that we didn't really need to make to know what would happen once he was introduced. He's the only player I can remember who looked as if he was ready to come off within 5 or 10 minutes of coming on, the person next to me was asking for Shola to come off when Ben Arfa was getting ready to come on.

It's not the spirit at all, it's probably the reality.

I said to my son that tonight might be the last time we get to go to a European game together, I hope I'm wrong.

Sorry but I don't agree, my take on it from what I watched is that so late in the game Sissoko was wrecked and he wouldn't have been as slow to react earlier if in the same position as he was when he let the Benfica player breeze past him. We prodded them with a stick late in the game and they had nothing to lose at that point as they could come at us without having to worry about fatigue. We just didn't test them early enough and I don't see why we couldn't have withstood a barrage from them with players who were fresher earlier in the game.