Unbelievable

Token offer that, if true.

I'm slowly moving towards the Pardew out camp myself, but to say the football has been dreadful these last couple of weeks is false in my humble opinion. The defending has been dreadful, and the results certainly have, but we've also played some quite decent football recently. The first half vs Reading for example wasn't bad at all. Actually, I think the football itself in recent times hasn't been worse than large periods of last season.

Well yes, that would be the sensible approach. We have gone four windows without that CB we need regardless, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if we pulled out of a deal with Mbiwa the second we convince Colo to stay until the end of the season at least..

I have this lingering fear that this bloke is the contingency plan for the eventuality that we may not be able to persuade Colo to stay. Aren't talks with Colo planned for today? I'd be surprised and elated if we end up with both of them being here by the end of January.

Good post.

http://karenknowsbest.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/this-will-not-end-well-cat.jpg

Must not get my hopes up

He was on for a massive 10 minutes and showed more than Torres in 80 before..

Looked a Rooney dive to me..

He's up there in our worries. If he doesn't start scoring soon, we are dependent on HBA or a new signing to keep us up. He's genuinely out of form and has been all season. Big, bad Demba has gone and Cisse needs to pick up the mantle of being THAT guy. Yup. Baffling statement to say he's the least of our worries. If he keeps doing as he has for the last six months we could very well be down. I think he's coming into form since Ba left... I was down at Norwich and he got nothing other than a few high balls to contest... Just needs regular service but at the moment the team are feeding him scraps... As College Dropout has argued far better than I ever could he got plenty of service yesterday and missed a few you would really hope your striker tucks away in a relegation battle. We are hugely dependent on him refinding his goalscoring form and quickly.

He's up there in our worries. If he doesn't start scoring soon, we are dependent on HBA or a new signing to keep us up. He's genuinely out of form and has been all season. Big, bad Demba has gone and Cisse needs to pick up the mantle of being THAT guy. Yup. Baffling statement to say he's the least of our worries. If he keeps doing as he has for the last six months we could very well be down.

I wouldn't touch Bert Van Marjick with a barge pole - he's as non-Dutch as any Netherland's manager i've seen in the top job. He did a Pardew on their n.t., and that he succesfully managed to get a technically gifted squad (with some cracking attacking talent at his disposal) to play junk/anti-football. In this respect he has the Pardew Midas Touch, and encompasses negativity. What a load of crap. During his time at the Holland national team he has broken just about every possible record and had us playing very good football at times. You must have only watched the WC final and Euro campaign and made an argument based on those few matches in isolation to come to such a ridiculous conclusion.

Agreed.

Who are you thinking of? Rijkaard just recently got the boot.

Oh! That would be brilliant Give him a good AssMan to manage the dressing room and he should be fine, imho. His problems at Barça began when he lost Ten Cate. Probably would want big money/will try to get a CL club though. I didn't know you liked Rijkaard that much. The general perception seems to be he's not done particularly well at Barca, just taking over and not really building on Van Gaal's foundations. Anyway, I personally don't rate Rijkaard as a manager either. His track record is not particularly impressive and I really don't understand how he went from relegating Sparta Rotterdam to being the Holland manager and and not doing particularly well to then managing Barcelona. As you point out, he needs people with tactical knowledge around him as he's very limited himself. Wouldn't want to see him here, he'd be another Gullit. Are you crazy? He saved Barça. When he took over we'd just finished 6th, and had 5 year barren spell. It was the lowest point in the history of the club. He took Van Gaal's tactics and updated them to the times. I talked about it on another thread; how he killed the "Guardiola role" and put a proper DM as #4, played Xavi further up the pitch, pushed up the defence line and started the pressing system we still use... without Rijkaard current Barça wouldn't simply exist. Most people soured on him in the last two years, but I blame that on his lack of man management skills, and how the star players began running the show; not his tactical nous. Guardiola sat on the throne that Frank built. Fair enough, I must have mixed up Van Gaal's first and second period. Doesn't take away from the fact he's done nothing before and after Barcelona to suggest he's a great manager. It'd be a great risk to have him come in here whilst we're in the middle of a relegation fight.

5 to 7. Starting to get quite concerned now. We needed at least 5 points from these 3 "easier" fixtures, and we've only got one so far, whilst at the same time other teams at the bottom seem to be hitting a bit of form and are starting to pick up points.

Oh! That would be brilliant Give him a good AssMan to manage the dressing room and he should be fine, imho. His problems at Barça began when he lost Ten Cate. Probably would want big money/will try to get a CL club though. I didn't know you liked Rijkaard that much. The general perception seems to be he's not done particularly well at Barca, just taking over and not really building on Van Gaal's foundations. Anyway, I personally don't rate Rijkaard as a manager either. His track record is not particularly impressive and I really don't understand how he went from relegating Sparta Rotterdam to being the Holland manager and and not doing particularly well to then managing Barcelona. As you point out, he needs people with tactical knowledge around him as he's very limited himself. Wouldn't want to see him here, he'd be another Gullit.

first time he's really played through the middle on his own, go figure. Not having that like..

We're not looking for a male hooker here you know..?

class is hardly the word i would use. i'd rather us get relegated with pardew than hire a fascist: some things are bigger than football.

Said it before, but Van Marwijk would be perfect for us.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to turn on our own players, but to suggest the one striker we depend upon to fire us to safety missing four big chances in a match we eventually lose against relegation rivals is "not a problem at all" is a bit odd.. Well obviously I'd have rather he scored those chances, but apart from the one he blasted over (that I acknowledged in my post) I don't really see what else he could have done on the others. Header was a magnificent save, contact on the volley was probably too perfect and the cross from Debuchy was smothered well. He didn't score, but it doesn't mean he was poor. Sometimes you've just got to admit that the opposition goalkeeper had a great game. The real problem was how easy he had it in the second half. The volley and the header were instinctive, first touch finishes indicative of the kind of striker he is. I think maybe another (type of) striker would have controlled the ball for the volley to give himself more time. Both finishes were straight at the 'keeper though, whether that is unlucky or not I don't know, but last season he didn't miss many of those and they would have gone straight in the top corner. The one on one after that excellent cross from Debuchy I feel he should definitely have done better as he had plenty of time. Yes, Frederici came out early, but he could have slipped it past him, chipped it over him or even took the ball around him. The chance in the dying seconds of the game was just a terrible lack of composure. Put it this way, I don't think Ba would have been so "unlucky" today and would probably have got away with at least one goal against these.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to turn on our own players, but to suggest the one striker we depend upon to fire us to safety missing four big chances in a match we eventually lose against relegation rivals is "not a problem at all" is a bit odd..

To those who argued getting rid of that vile goalscoring egoist Demba Ba would see Cisse magically return to scoring goals for fun: