Mick

If we fail to beat Man City on Saturday we'll be behind our relegation season on points after the same number of games. Off the pitch we're stable which probably makes this season even worse to date because we've got no excuse for failure. For all the upheaval we had when we went down, we coped better up to this stage of the season and that is abysmal.

That's got to be league only as I'm sure he had one season where he played more than 40 games in total.

Duff was one of the most pointless signings we've made, we had a limited budget and brought a player in to challenge N'Zogbia who had been brilliant for us the season before. A third of our tranfer budget was wasted on a player who was nowhere near the player that Blackburn sold to Chelsea.

I thought that I'd made is obvious, I'd play him on the left of a front 3 not that I’d want our front 3 to be too rigid in where they play. I certainly wouldn’t have him playing in a front 2 and trying to hit balls to him from the back which has been the story of our season so far. If I was going to play a front 2 I’d have made sure that we had wingers capable of getting past defenders and putting balls into the box and giving them something to feed off.

I can't suggest to you what I would like to, so we'll leave it at that.

I agree, we're not talking about last season though. I know we did well last season in finishing 5th and that can never be taken away from Pardew but it's not doing anything for us this season. Nobody can live forever because of what they've done in the past and while that might not be fair, it's the way it is. We simply can't look back and give people in a competitive sport too long, the costs are too high. I really do hope that he can turn things around because it will be better for all of us but I'm not sure that he can.

As a fan I'm convinced that Ba would be happy playing left of centre as long as he was getting goals and hogging the limelight. He loves being the star player and loves getting goals and I don't have a problem with that because most forwards are the same in that respect. Goals bring him confidence and I don’t think for one minute that it would bother him where he was getting them from, as long as he was getting them, something which didn't happen last season after he was moved. As for what I would do in Pardew’s position, I wouldn’t let a player dictate to me where he did or didn’t play, if that is what’s happening. I’ve managed people for many years and don’t let people tell me what they are or aren’t going to do because if one person can do it then they all can. If you give one person preferential treatment is usually pisses off others and affects the performance of others. Is Cisse pissed off because he’s been moved away from a position which he made a success of last season? My guess is that he probably is and it’s preventing him from performing to the best of his ability. Keeping one player happy looks to be causing another player to underperform, the other player is just as good at doing his job as Ba is but he doesn’t moan about it. So in that case keeping Ba happy is being cancelled out by pissing off Cisse.

You know what that type of manager would do, he'd attack and get the most out of his assets.

Are our forwards really weaker? That’s debatable considering Best hasn’t played a competitive game since he left us because unsurprisingly, he’s injured. We do need more up front but losing Best isn’t the end of the world and with hindsight, was a good move even though we should have replaced him. Pardew isn’t faultless with that though as he was quite happy going into the season with what we’ve got and claiming that we were good enough to challenge for the Champions League, or words to that effect. You're using a hypothetical scenario against an actual situation. The manager shouldn’t do everything possible to keep Ba happy if it’s to the detriment of the team. Ba is refusing to sign a new contract so could be away in January anyway, what are we then left with? I’ll tell you what we’ll be left with. We’ll be left with a team that is struggling around the bottom of the league and that will be partly due to allowing a player to dictate where he does or doesn’t play, or because the manager doesn't want to play him in that position. People like me have been supporting the club for decades, and I’ve been through 4 relegations, the first one I can remember was the season after we’d finished 5th and we were relegated because we gave the wrong manager too long to try and put something right that he was incapable of doing. I’ve been quite happy to apportion some of the blame away from Pardew but you can’t get away from him being the manager of a team which is massively underperforming. If you want to blame others for that then fine, you’re wrong. Our manager is a part of the recruitment process which has partially failed us. Our manager is responsible for training the players. Our manager is responsible for motivating the players. Our manager is responsible for picking the team. Our manager is responsible for choosing the tactics for each and every game. Our manager is responsible for choosing the formation for each game. Have I missed anything out or failed to mention who else is responsible for anything mentioned above?

Pardew is the manager, how can anybody else be to blame for Pardew (the manager) picking Ba in a formation that doesn't suit us as a team? I understand that we don't know what is said between the manager and player and don't really need to as we can judge the situation on what we actually see. I can understand why he wants to keep Ba happy but not at the expense of the team and that is what is actually happening. Either Ba doesn't want to play left of a front 3 or Pardew doesn't want him to. Only 1 person picks the team and only 1 person is to blame for it unless Pardew is being told what to do by somebody above him which we have no proof of so I'll stick to what we do know.

Ba should not be allowed to dictate who plays where and he is doing that indirectly, the situation should be managed much better than it is and it's one of the reasons why we are where we are. Ba playing left of a front 3 is partially why we finished so high up the league last season and playing him centrally this season is part of the reason for us sitting 14th this morning. Nobody wants Ba to stay at Newcastle more than I do, not at any cost to the team though as no player is more important than the good of the team. We've clearly played a formation for much of the season so far which doesn't suit most of our players, the reason for that is either because Ba doesn't want to play left of a front 3 or the manager doesn't want him to, either way, only one person is to blame for that.

Exactly this. Amazing the number of people who don't seem to grasp this particular argument. Ba is not the person who picks the team, amazing the number of people who don't seem to grasp this particular argument.

I've heard plenty of people venting about Pardew when coming out of the ground and walking down Barrack Road after the match.

I think I can live with what I've typed, he's the least of our problems.

1-1

He played a part in both goals, other than that he was one of our better players.

Yes, I would boo every touch of the ball, after applauding him onto the pitch and back off afterwards. I doubt he'll leave any time soon as I believe it when he says he likes it here.

Er well, thanks mate, you did put words in my mouth. I never said we dominated, my original post said we were excellent without being incisive. All f***ing season long we've been asking why we're hoofing the ball up - well tonight we played 433 and we kept the ball on the deck. We hardly hoofed the ball at all and when we did it was more of a lofted ball from midfield than anything else, and even that was rare. If you moan all season about us playing hoofball (as I have) then we start playing passing football throughout the game then it seems a bit f***ing demanding to say you think our passing football isn't incisive enough. Give it time man, hopefully we've reverted back to 433 and back to a passing style. Tonight wasn't that much different to our game against West Brom away last season in terms of our approach, however Fulham had 8 or 9 men behind the ball at most times. It was therefore difficult to open them up. Moan too loudly and Pardew will go back to the hoof. Stick with this and we can hopefully progress. Black bold, Blue bold, give your head a shake.

I'm not sure we expected to win them, we needed to and didn't and the tougher games are still to come. I can only see us getting a maximum of 3 points between now and January and wouldn't be surprised if we only get 1.

We don't know either way, what we do know is that we're struggling against other struggling team. We're failing to win games which have become 6 pointers and have lost games which didn't look like 6 pointers at the time but they have become that.

The biggest mistake would be to keep him and go down.

They understand what dropping from 5th to whereever we end up means £'s. Assuming the same as last season (5th to 15th): £7.5m less in merit payments + £2-3m is future TV payments due to lower league positioning this season. The increased TV deal money will override all of that though...I think. The increased TV money is the season after.

Shirt sales will be down because no self respecting person will buy a shirt with Wonga on it.

They understand what dropping from 5th to whereever we end up means £'s.

A lot of it was. we were lucky that we had a reasonably easy start to last season and were able to builf up a good head of steam early in the season which allowed us to get going. We were lucky that Ba and Cisse were burying everything they hit at different times in the season and we had other luck but it wasn't all down to luck.