Mick

Travel, we played at home as often as we played away and two of the away trips resulted in flights of 2 hours or less. The disruption to training should be minimal if he re-schedules days off. Before Pardew arrived we played in Europe and didn't use it as an excuse, we managed the situations instead of looking to use it as a way of deflecting the attention away from poor performance. We’ve rarely had a massive squad of quality and we’ve had seasons with as many games as this in the past without looking for excuses. We’ve been hearing since September or October that the players are tired and it’s more of the same bullshit.

The thought of Shola starting.

It's not fair enough, he's complained that Europe has the players tired because they play twice a week and he's also claiming that he's broken the team up. He can't have it both ways. The players are either playing, which few of them are as we make so many changes for Europe, or they aren't playing and therefore not tired.

One of his latest excuses is "The squad was probably too small. We broke the team up in those Europa League games, which probably took some momentum away."

At the beginning of this season he thought that we were good enough to challenge for the CL with what we had. On the manpower, he admitted he was partly to blame.

His natural instinct wouldn't be to pass, it would be to hit row z because he'd be running from centre to left. For him to pass in field would mean he's either having to turn 90' or use his wrong foot, something I'd have problems with even trying to think about.

I thought about it earlier this season when Taylor was playing left of centre and Williamson was having a mare. The thought of Williamson running to the left just sent shivers up my spine. He gets turned far too easily and I can only imagine the state he would get into playing cack footed.

Have you seen Williamson on his strongest side?

We don't need to change anything man, we're doing well without change, just sit back and enjoy.

Your thought process is baffling.

In the real world we didn't get those points and we're 10 points (50% of our points total) off fourth, you really do live up to your forum username.

We're two easy home games behind them, that takes us up to 23rd February if none of them get another point.

Are you only a shit manager if you've spent a certain amount of money?

I manage people and have done for years and I'm yet to fall out with anybody and I don't get walked over by people, I manage them. Falling out with people isn't a part of being a boss, avoiding fall outs is. I've seen managers who do fall out with people regularly and they are usually pushed out of the business because of the disruption they cause.

You mention O'Neill, at half time on Saturday he had the mackems above us in the league and he's been slaughtered on here for being shite.

We finished higher up the table with Cisse last season than we were before he arrived. We changed back to 4-4-2 this season and have played far too much long ball, which hasn't suited anybody and that change comes from the manager, at least it does if you believe the players. We have constantly hit the ball from back to front, Ba and Cisse are not good and handling that kind of game and the same can be said for the midfielders. We've played 4-4-2 without wingers getting in behind the fullback and putting balls into the box. Just about everything we've tried looks to be out of desperation and we're getting found out, just like the manager. We keep hearing excuses for him on here and inevitably something comes out that brings it back to the manager. The excuses have been that it’s the players playing hoof ball, it turns out that the players think it’s the manager. We look shit going forward and people blame the players, it turns out that we spend 80% of our training time defending. We spend 1 day a week looking at how to get at the opposition and to be honest, it shows in our games. We’ve brought in a class forward and we’ve turned him to shit in no time and it’s beyond a joke that people still find excuses for Pardew who is a glorified bluffer. He's getting bigged up by some for beating the worst team I've seen at St James' for years. He did that with 4 defensive midfielders against a truly rotten team because he hasn't got the balls to have a go at them. It took him 3 substitutions to get it right because Shola and Obertan weren’t going to change the game. At the third attempt he brought on the player that the game was crying out for, a player that was an obvious choice to start, never mind come off the bench. I’m very close to wanting him out of the club and the only reason I don’t yet is because like others, I don’t trust the idiots who employed him to get the replacement right. If things get any worse though it will be worth getting rid of him just because keeping him will have too many dangers for the club because make no mistake about it. Getting relegated again will not be as painless as last time. The last time we went down we lost a load of players who were only here for the money and players who let’s be honest, weren’t very likeable. Now though we have a good set of players who are good enough to play here and they’ll not be replaced as easily as the ones we got rid of last time, And, we’ll not have the £35 million windfall that Carroll brought last time we came up and that should never be under estimated because without it we’d be struggling even more than we are now.

Here we go again.

Did you notice that last season he was playing in a different system?

Were we not 12th when he took over and 12th at the end of that first season? I'm sure we were 4 points above relegation when he arrived with more than half the games left and we finished 7 points above relegation. Last season we finished in a better position than expected but that doesn't mean that he can now sit back and take all of the plaudits for that. This season we're currently 9 places lower and I would be very surprised if we've bottomed out yet. He deserves negativity towards him and he's getting it, even the players are having a go at him. Something which was used as a plus for him when it wasn't happening.

You do realise that 6 adds up to one every 3 games, don't you?

This season he's feeing off scraps, that has nothing to do with last season or how many chances Ba is or isn't getting.

Indeed. You can't call a spade a spade on here. Well, here's one: many of our players, especially our better ones, and I include Cisse in that (as well as Colo and Tiote for example), have not played anywhere close to their ability. They are as much, if not more to blame for our current plight as the default scapegoats this forum loves to slate, such as Simpson, Williamson and more recently Ba and Pardew. Why do you think many of our players haven't played "anywhere close to their ability"?

Cisse is feeding off scraps, you're over playing the chances he's getting.