Mick

I was using those players against a post which had included Ryan Taylor, Vuckic, Ameobi, and Harper not playing as being an excuse for why we are where we are.

Of course it is.

Aye, I forgot that we've been shit because we've been forced to play James Perch.

Cabaye, Debuchy, Ben Arfa, Santon and Tiote have all won trophies and are internationals.

We usually have 11 players on the pitch at any given time.

Yes, we're overrating our trophy winning international players.

So much for his managerial ability, is that supposed to make him look better?

We look like we could be closer to relegation with a team that has included Krul, Debuchy, Mbiwa, Santon, Cabaye, Sissoko, Ben Arfa, Coloccini, Anita, Cisse, Goufran, Ba, Marveaux and Tiote.

Chopping and changing wasn't really the problem under Shepherd, other than sacking Bobby Robson, he got the others right. What Shepherd was shit as was appointing the right manager and that's basically why he had to sack them. As far as I'm concerned he got one sacking wrong, on the other side of that he got all but one, possibly two at a stretch, of his appointments wrong. Dalglish was rightly sacked and he's since shown that he was finished before we got him with his sacking at Liverpool and Celtic where he was D of F and manager for a time when they sacked the equally hopeless John Barnes. The appointment of Souness was mind boggling and replacing him with Roeder was the work of a lazy bastard taking an easy option. Allardyce was probably a good appointment to work under the conditions that were present after Souness had been bailed out and allowed to spend £50 million on mainly shit value players. Comparing our position to Everton is crazy, they didn’t have a pot to piss in when they appointed Moyes and they were almost certainly going down when they appointed Moyes who was doing really well as Preston. His record as a manager was one of success as he’d taken over a struggling Preston and had improved them year after year. Moyes hadn’t almost relegated West Ham, he hadn’t relegated Charlton and he hadn’t been sacked by third division Southampton who then flourished after binning him. When Moyes finished 1 place above relegation at Everton it was his first spell in his managerial career where he’d taken a club backwards so for him it was a blip, not the norm. Him spending £8.5 million in first full season was chicken feed at the time, during that same period we spent £23 million on Viana, Bramble, Woodgate and Ambrose so it’s not comparing like for like. We were signing up and coming players while Moyes was forced to sign players from Netto because of financial restraints. They were struggling on and off the pitch and Kenwright had just come into the club because of the state they were in financially.

Are you taking something?

The thing is, nobody is right or wrong. It will not change how bad this season has been if we do well next season and last season will not become worse than it was because of this season. Is he a good manager or a one season wonder? Some think he's a good manager based on one season while others think he's a poor manager based on what he’s done here and most of his managerial career which has been more lows than highs. Personally, I've seen very little during his time here to think he can do anything more than stagnate and fluke the odd decent result/league finish. We simply haven’t progressed as a team under him other than our league position last year which was more often than not based on some negative football and tactics. I know this has been done to death but it shouldn’t be forgotten. He spends 4 out of 5 days coaching the team to defend and we’re about as bad as it gets in this division, even if somebody on here tries to disregard some goals conceded. Our defence includes an international keeper, an international left back, an international right back and two international centre backs if fit and played together. Our midfield can contain 5 international players and our main forward plays for his country. I see no reason to believe that a team which can contain 11 internationals aren’t better than what we’ve seen this season and I’ve seen nothing to make me believe that our manager is playing the type of football that best suits our players. I don’t think we have a single player who thrives with us sitting back as often as we do and I can only put that down to Pardew. I would guess that our lowest international player count this season doesn’t go below 50% yet teams who would struggle to field that many on a good day are doing better than we are. I’m sick of the excuses that he and others come out with on his behalf. We aren’t a team that should be looking to scrape enough points to stay in the division with 7 games remaining and it’s a massive waste of the players in our squad. What is our playing style? Do we have anything as a team that anybody could call a strength? I’d fail to answer either of those questions and he’s been here for something like 2 ½ seasons and that’s piss poor. I don’t see anything to suggest that he’s going to change, he’s got a personal comfort zone and he’ll stick to it because it’s all that he knows and that’s a problem because his idea of how football should be played doesn’t match what our players are good at or comfortable with. He’ll dabble from time to time and it will fail more often than not because the players aren’t used to it under him as we don’t seem to work on it. If we’re going to do well on a constant basis then he’s going to have to change and I’m not sure that he’s capable or comfortable enough to see it through. If he’s going to change then it will have to be what we work on at the start of the season and we would have to stick with it. Again, I can’t see any evidence of that being likely to happen and for that reason I will see next season as more than likely being another wasted season if he's still at the club. The excuses used this season by Mr Negativity just don’t add up. The reasons he uses for excuses aren’t enough for a 5th placed team to become a 15th placed team yet some are falling for it. If people want to fall for the shit he comes out with then so be it, ignorance can be bliss but it will not change where we are and how poorly we’ve played. If people think he’s the right manager for us, why? What makes him right for us? Don’t use the shitty argument that we can’t do better than him because that’s bollocks. The argument that he’s going to suddenly have us playing free flowing attacking football is pie in the sky and baseless.

I would always prefer to be at the game and watching as you can see everything and you don't always get that with TV. Listening on Radio is possibly worse than not knowing as they are sometimes miles behind the game.

If the fans believe in a manager he'll get time, Keegan and Bobby were given plenty because people bought into what they were trying to do because they were both trusted by the fans.

This game is massive, win it and we can relax a bit, fail to win and we're in the crap.

That would depend on who he was replaced with but carry on being daft in an attempt to justify Pardew by making it look as if people only want shot of him because of 3 or 4 defeats.

The "One great season" is just that, one season, and he's been managing for 14 seasons, not two.

Haidara will be worse than shit as soon as he has a bad game.

Agreed, but I could also add much better reasons to see him sacked.

He didn't have time and was being closed down by 2 players, he turned towards Krul and one of the Benfica players had gone past him and would have blocked his view of Lima closing Krul down.

Could just be they were a very good team that legitimately pushed us back at times? No complaints from me tonight, thought he set us up well, started both halves strongly, which has been a weakness but was undone by the kind of mistakes you can't really legislate for, and the Perch injury came at a really bad time. That's a really good point actually, one that I'd forgotten. He wasn't pulling up any trees but I honestly think he's useful in there because he holds a position and retains possession. I thought Anita was rubbish when he came on - the polar opposite to the relatively calming influence of Perch. Perch shouldn't have come out for the 2nd half, he was useless in the first.

We spend 80% of our training time working on defence and still have one of the worst defensive records in the league. Tonight we've probably sealed our fate in the UEFA because of 2 defensive mistakes and we didn’t look comfortable at the back at all. I’d love to know what we actually do for 4 days a week because I see no evidence of it during a match.

He's never past it, it's always in the background and is why he should never be first choice accept for injuries.

Probably not but that didn't happen.

Agreed, I just wish we'd spend a bit more time working with our defenders.

It was hand to ball , Taylor knew what he was doing.