Unbelievable

Trying to come up with reasons why his form has dipped and then only ending up with reasons outside of his control is what I call making excuses. Pretty sure that's what making excuses means too, but than again English is nog my mother tongue so I may be wrong.. As for the reason why Cisse has been so disappointing, I don't know and I din't want to theorise. What I do know though, and that's how this argument started, is that moving Ba who is scoring away from goal to accomodate a stuttering Cisse in the centre seems like utter madness to me. As mad as moving Cisse away from the centre to accommodate a sulking, stuttering Ba? Beggars f***ing belief this like. I knew this was coming. I for one am perfectly happy for our best players to request being played in their preferred position, as long as they deliver when they are. Ba has delivered whenever he has played in the centre for us, Cisse hasn't so far this season, so with a change from two to one central striker it was obvious he was the one going wide for a while or out of the first team altogether (which I would have preferred btw). I fully expect Cisse to get frustrated for being played out wide, just as Ba did. Four games in, and the first signs were there last Saturday. He will have to walk the walk too though, like Ba did when he requested to play centrally. As I said, in a 433 there is only one place for a real central striker, which they both are. May the best one win. At the moment that is Ba. I really hope Cisse refinds his form of last year and reclaims his place. That's primarily up to him though; if he keeps missing chances at this rate it may be a while yet. If he starts banging them in I am sure nobody will be more delighted than Pardew himself. The manager needs to do what's best for the team based on the evidence available. He's not doing it, and he wouldn't be sacrificing anything by trying something which worked so well last season. If Cisse was playing anywhere near as well as last season we wouldn't even be having this debate. As it is, displacing the forward who is doing the business to accomodate the one who isn't is indeed a huge sacrifice considering where we would be right now if Ba's form was like Cisse's this season.

Trying to come up with reasons why his form has dipped and then only ending up with reasons outside of his control is what I call making excuses. Pretty sure that's what making excuses means too, but than again English is nog my mother tongue so I may be wrong.. As for the reason why Cisse has been so disappointing, I don't know and I din't want to theorise. What I do know though, and that's how this argument started, is that moving Ba who is scoring away from goal to accomodate a stuttering Cisse in the centre seems like utter madness to me. As mad as moving Cisse away from the centre to accommodate a sulking, stuttering Ba? Beggars f***ing belief this like. I knew this was coming. I for one am perfectly happy for our best players to request being played in their preferred position, as long as they deliver when they are. Ba has delivered whenever he has played in the centre for us, Cisse hasn't so far this season, so with a change from two to one central striker it was obvious he was the one going wide for a while or out of the first team altogether (which I would have preferred btw). I fully expect Cisse to get frustrated for being played out wide, just as Ba did. Four games in, and the first signs were there last Saturday. He will have to walk the walk too though, like Ba did when he requested to play centrally. As I said, in a 433 there is only one place for a real central striker, which they both are. May the best one win. At the moment that is Ba. I really hope Cisse refinds his form of last year and reclaims his place. That's primarily up to him though; if he keeps missing chances at this rate it may be a while yet. If he starts banging them in I am sure nobody will be more delighted than Pardew himself.

The main striker role in a 442. As far as excuses being made for his failings this season, that has got to be the funniest yet.. I think there's something to be said for the 442 system and the style of football we play in it suiting Ba far more than it does Cisse. Agreed on that count. It just happens to be Pardew's preferred style of play.

Trying to come up with reasons why his form has dipped and then only ending up with reasons outside of his control is what I call making excuses. Pretty sure that's what making excuses means too, but than again English is nog my mother tongue so I may be wrong.. As for the reason why Cisse has been so disappointing, I don't know and I din't want to theorise. What I do know though, and that's how this argument started, is that moving Ba who is scoring away from goal to accomodate a stuttering Cisse in the centre seems like utter madness to me.

The main striker role in a 442. As far as excuses being made for his failings this season, that has got to be the funniest yet..

Not sure why he won't answer this question. Should we sacrifice results whilst he regains his form. What is this s***? It's unbelievable. Funny, the person that was aimed at understood what I meant. Maybe that statement in the context of the rest of the post had a slightly different meaning..? Nothing like taking a few words out of context to make yourself look smart. Keep it up lads..

People complain about Pardew being a 442 merchant and then come out with this sort of shit when it suits them..

Knew people would claim that horrible experiment wasn't what they claim they want, but to be fair equally are we not playing a traditional 442 with 2 banks of four and 2 strikers up top much these last couple of weeks (i.e. in our run of losses). The reality is our problems run much deeper than simply sacrificing a midfield player for a winger. Yep, the manager is s*** That's one way of looking at it. Another would be to say we're not bringing in the players that he wants/needs in order for him to play his preferred style of play (regardless of what we think about the aesthetics of that style of play). Why else bring in a striker who can only excel in a 433, and a defensive midfield player who thrives on possession based linkup play between the defensive players and the midfield/forward players, when he seemnigly wants to play a traditional English game with two banks of four and a little man/big man combo up front? To be honest, if the long term tactical aim from Pardew is what you've suggested (and many suspect) then I really do want him gone. We will never consistently achieve anything tangible playing like that even with the players needed to make it work. The glass ceiling for that is what O'Neill achieved with Villa. We beat that last season 6 months ago..

Pardew cannot win. Let me ask you: do you work? If so, is everything in your job exactly how you want it? If not, why haven't you walked yet?

Everton first half for example, where we were completely taken apart. Yeah I suppose so, had totally forgotten our initial approach that night to be honest. The personnel was canny different to what was successful last season mind and the Marveaux ploy to stop Baines was abysmal. Harper; Perch, Williamson, Taylor, Santon; Anita, Jonas; Marveaux, Cabaye, Ben Arfa; Cisse was the team. Almost half of our usual starters missing, Ben Arfa playing on the other side and it was only really the right side where we suffered IIRC. Think we've been equally as s**** or worse playing in different ways. You should have seen the prematch thread from the moment the team news was out that day. Then that abysmal, abysmal first half, reverting to 442 at half time (with Ba coming on) and ultimately looking decent value for a draw based on our second half performance. Edit: coincidentally, in that reply is one of the real reasons why we had a stop/start first half of the season. Just look at that back 5 FFS. In regards to the edit, I thought the same but then went and looked at our line-ups for the "good" 4-3-3 matches from last season (the 6 games from Norwich-Stoke) and realised the team was constantly unsettled then too (and missing "big" players a lot of the time). The defence for the 2-0 Liverpool win was Simpson, Williamson, Perch and Gutierrez For the first 15 or so matches of last season though, where we laid the foundations for our excellent season, we had a settled back five.

Knew people would claim that horrible experiment wasn't what they claim they want, but to be fair equally are we not playing a traditional 442 with 2 banks of four and 2 strikers up top much these last couple of weeks (i.e. in our run of losses). The reality is our problems run much deeper than simply sacrificing a midfield player for a winger. Yep, the manager is s*** That's one way of looking at it. Another would be to say we're not bringing in the players that he wants/needs in order for him to play his preferred style of play (regardless of what we think about the aesthetics of that style of play). Why else bring in a striker who can only excel in a 433, and a defensive midfield player who thrives on possession based linkup play between the defensive players and the midfield/forward players, when he seemnigly wants to play a traditional English game with two banks of four and a little man/big man combo up front?

Fully agree with all of that.

Knew people would claim that horrible experiment wasn't what they claim they want, but to be fair equally are we not playing a traditional 442 with 2 banks of four and 2 strikers up top much these last couple of weeks (i.e. in our run of losses). The reality is our problems run much deeper than simply sacrificing a midfield player for a winger.

Everton first half for example, where we were completely taken apart. Yeah I suppose so, had totally forgotten our initial approach that night to be honest. The personnel was canny different to what was successful last season mind and the Marveaux ploy to stop Baines was abysmal. Harper; Perch, Williamson, Taylor, Santon; Anita, Jonas; Marveaux, Cabaye, Ben Arfa; Cisse was the team. Almost half of our usual starters missing, Ben Arfa playing on the other side and it was only really the right side where we suffered IIRC. Think we've been equally as s**** or worse playing in different ways. You should have seen the prematch thread from the moment the team news was out that day. Then that abysmal, abysmal first half, reverting to 442 at half time (with Ba coming on) and ultimately looking decent value for a draw based on our second half performance. Edit: coincidentally, in that reply is one of the real reasons why we had a stop/start first half of the season. Just look at that back 5 FFS.

Do you really believe Cisse would be on 15+ goals now if only Pardew had told Ba to stick to the left side of the pitch?

The 442/433 is a completely different debate. Whilst you are correct, we also looked superb v Man Utd at home for example in a 442. Whether we play well or not is not all down to a simple matter of pushing a midfield player forward and tucking the remaining midfielders in. Going back to Cisse though, wouldn't you agree his form has been disappointing this season? And if you believe this to be the case, is it not too easy to ignore his own involvement in that and completely lay the blame for it at others? Fact is, if Cisse and Ba were in any way complimentary, we wouldn't even be having this debate..

Not sure why he won't answer this question. His fault as in not a result of outside influences, but his own loss of form. Should we persevere with him? Yes we should, and we have/still are. Should we sacrifice results whilst he regains his form. That's where I draw the line. I'd sooner drop him and play him in the cups/Europe than playing him centrally in a 433 in this kind of hopeless form, that makes us as a team weaker defensively (first and foremost), whilst shipping our in form striker out of the team or playing him where he is nowhere as effective. At the end of last season, I would have said it was Cisse's place to lose. As I've argued in another post on this page, I completely understand why Pardew wanted to try his tested 442 with 2 prolific strikers. It didn't work out. but now that we've learned this unfortunately for Papiss it's Ba's place to lose, as he has delivered while Cisse hasn't.

Everton first half for example, where we were completely taken apart.

Did you notice that last season he was playing in a different system? Did you notice we finished fifth last season playing primarily the much maligned 442 system and were doing pretty well before Cisse even got here? Look, I would love us to go back to that 433 we briefly played at the tail end of last season. It did look quite sexy, Cisse was on fire and we did get some good results. There's no denying though we've also seen how vulnerable we can get when we deploy that formation, so I completely understand Pardew's reasoning in partnering his 2 best strikers up front, both of whom have proven they are capable of 20+ goals a season and building on solid defensive foundations just as we did in the first half of last season. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out - we look lost for ideas, some of our top performers are hopelessly out of form and we're not where we want to be in the table. That's fair enough, and Pardew needs to change that around if he wants to be in this job after this season. None of that explains why so many people on here seem hellbent on blaming Pardew, Ba, the transfer window or whatever other outside circumstance they can think off before pointing the finger at the players on the pitch who have let us down. Those include Colo and Tiote, but also Cisse, who we know is capable of much better than he is currently showing.

That's not what I'm saying. My point is it's at least partly his fault that he's not performing at anywhere near the level he did last season. 16 vs 62% chance conversion FFS.

Opta Stats reckon Cisse has had 6 this season and he's scored 1 of them (16.66%). Last season in total he had 13 and scored 8 (62%). In terms of other players: Ba has had 12 and has scored 6 (50%), Michu has had 12 and scored 9 (75%), Fletcher has had 5 and scored 4 (80%), Defoe has had 9 and scored 5 (56%), Suarez has had 16 and scored 7 (44%) and Van Persie has had 19 and scored 6 (33%). I don't understand why people like Ba (11), Michu (12) and Van Persie (12) have scored more than their totals suggest on there, and whilst it's obviously still somewhat subjective it at least points to Cisse being well behind other strikers this season as well as himself last season when it comes to chance conversion, which was my point from the beginning. Add Opta Stats to that hate list then.. These are just chances that have been fashioned for a striker that we'd typically consider "sitters". One-on-ones, free headers, unchallenged shots in the box, etc. Obviously not every goal is scored in such a manner. Of course I know it's not a perfect explanation of things by any stretch or on any scale, but like you say it does at least support your point. So erm, would it be correct to also conclude from those stats that besides scoring 6 "sitters" this season Demba Ba has also scored 5 Premiership goals that weren't clear cut chances created for him as opposed to Cisse's 1 (being extremely generous with that considering he knew nothing about it)? And people give me stick for saying Papiss' finishing and movement have been below par and maybe the player himself is partly to blame for this..?

You do realise that 6 adds up to one every 3 games, don't you? Have you noticed none of these other strikers who are scoring goals get 3 chances per game laid on a plate for them? Did you miss the fact his chance conversion percentage last season was 4 times higher than this season?

Opta Stats reckon Cisse has had 6 this season and he's scored 1 of them (16.66%). Last season in total he had 13 and scored 8 (62%). In terms of other players: Ba has had 12 and has scored 6 (50%), Michu has had 12 and scored 9 (75%), Fletcher has had 5 and scored 4 (80%), Defoe has had 9 and scored 5 (56%), Suarez has had 16 and scored 7 (44%) and Van Persie has had 19 and scored 6 (33%). I don't understand why people like Ba (11), Michu (12) and Van Persie (12) have scored more than their totals suggest on there, and whilst it's obviously still somewhat subjective it at least points to Cisse being well behind other strikers this season as well as himself last season when it comes to chance conversion, which was my point from the beginning. Add Opta Stats to that hate list then..

Cisse is feeding off scraps, you're over playing the chances he's getting. Whereas last season we created 20 golden edged chances a match for him? Or whereas we're magically creating shit loads for Demba Ba?

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.