Parky

No complaints. Best performance of the season. Nice passing and movement and matched the best team in the league for 70 odd mins. Cisse spins and scores it's 2-2 and then could have gone either way. MOM - Anita.

1-0.

We'll be winning this. The world is sliding into otherness. Everything you know is wrong.

Hatem will say he wants to play.

2nd

Needs a skinhead and some steroids.

Yeah that is an issue that we don't really have a marauding full back type. When Santon comes forward he's always on the wrong leg to cross. He also tends to hold onto the ball too long (probably cause nothing much is happenning in the box).

With that midlly bemused look on his face.

It's hilarious how they both run to the center of the box. Lemmings. I'd imagine in training at a PL football club one might be instructed to come to the near post or come short/drift to the edge of the box. Not on your nelly! Straight to the middle. Neville was stating it as a plus point how they follow each other on Monday iirc, pointing out the goal against Wigan where 'if Ba didn't put it in Cisse would have' It's a very basic approach to playing in a front two that you stay close to your partner. The subtlety is not actually making the same moves. And when the ball is wide or at a set piece, don't make the same run near/back post etc. That's complete bollocks. You're meant to give options in or near the box not hold each others hands. Easy to close out the hot zone for the defenders if as they do they run into very similar areas.

Little competition for places?

One of the best CD's in the league for me, just needs a partner who isn't a flapper (Taylor) or powder puff (Willo).

Pards it seems will never understand that style and cohesion is permanent, individual brilliance is temporary.

Was just about to broaden it to that. It's generally accepted that you can't really play two out and out strikers these days in the PL. One has to be a withdrawn striker like a Michu or a Dempsey who can move around in the space in front of the back four and link moves and add cohesion. I still think Hatem could do that if he was strated centrally and with a license to play it as he sees it. When he starts on the left he's too far away from the dangerous areas and when he starts on the right often 2/3 are at his legs. He should be where the space is in the grey zone where the likes of Michu and Ruiz are thriving. The Pl over the last decade has become far more techinical and this hitting stuff over the top or generally into the box just doesn't cut it anymore. Ba and Hatem are good friends and have an understanding they should start for now with a compact and battling mf behind them keeping it tight with short passes and perhaps Cabaye pulling the strings in that zone. Jol and strangely Rodgers break the pitch up into three or four zones and they have a ball player in each one who is given the ball to move it up into the next zone. With Liv it's Joe Allen and with Fulham it's Ruiz. Jol said in the post match how much Ruiz was missed as they went on their bad run. Our nominated zone masters should be Collo > Cabaye > Hatem. Willo should never be playing the pass out of defence and the same for Tiote in the next zone. They should just give the ball to Collo and Cabaye or Hatem if an early ball is on. This should be drilled on the training ground in 7 v 9 games every fukin day.

It's hilarious how they both run to the center of the box. Lemmings. I'd imagine in training at a PL football club one might be instructed to come to the near post or come short/drift to the edge of the box. Not on your nelly! Straight to the middle. I can't see how it can't be too hard not to simply watch what the other is doing and make sure your not standing on top of each other. One goes short, one goes long etc. The fact Pardew hasn't sorted it out is a farce. How can this be solely attributed to the manager? Should the players themselves not know they need to do that? Or do they simply do it because the manager, supposedly, hasn't said otherwise? These two are Ronin if I've ever clapped eyes on one. These here are renegade Samurai who have broken with the training. They shoot from anywhere with either foot on instinct. They need harnessing to the cause. The manager simply either doesn't know how to or doesn't think it's important. It's being going on for so long it's ridiculous.

It's hilarious how they both run to the center of the box. Lemmings. I'd imagine in training at a PL football club one might be instructed to come to the near post or come short/drift to the edge of the box. Not on your nelly! Straight to the middle. Shouldn't they already know this?

And Ben Arfa would be tearing the league a new arse AND Marveaux would be starting most games AND Cabaye would be transformed. Keegler would do a bit of five a side, talk positive to a couple of younguns and get Asprilla in to work with the strikers. He would get a couple of CD's who love coming forward with the ball and in the evenings they'd all settle down to fish and chips and a good movie.

It's hilarious how they both run to the center of the box. Lemmings. I'd imagine in training at a PL football club one might be instructed to come to the near post or come short/drift to the edge of the box. Not on your nelly! Straight to the middle.

Agree with all of that. The people saying that Pardew needs time aren't taking into account that a very low finish or relegation is going to gut the first team immediately. It will be really sad to have to watch next years carry on without the likes of Hatem.

Don't think he will move in Jan. I mean who is going to give him 80k a week and a long deal? Nobody. He should pipe down and get on with it.

Love it how people have just woken upto the fixtures.

Broadly agree. In anger (I'm guilty of it) we want rid, but looking at the bigger pic I think most of us hope he turns it around. He has to.

This is my biggest annoyance. Every team in the league attacks better as a team than we do and yet we have some better players than a lot of these teams. It always seems that we have to work our arses off just to create one chance, where it seems to flow so much more naturally for our opposition. We've got no fluidity whatsoever in our play. It's so disjointed. Very little link play. ie no real link forward. (No Michu or Dempsey or the like). Ball flying over the midfield etc...Berbatov did the job for them yesterday linking the def with the attack. The closest we have is Hatem but our forwards just run like lemmings straight into the center of the box and are easily covered. Not a brain cell between em. Hatem does his best but spends that much time defending he'll be our new left back soon. Hatem's problem is that once he has the ball he's either too deep, got too many defenders around him or the options are few and far between (i.e. forwards running offside/behind a defender). We've got no real link players at all. It's get the ball to the wingers to aimlessly float a cross at forwards who don't dominate in the air, or have the defenders knock it up so the attackers are facing their own goal. Would happily dump one of our strikers for a good withdrawn/link forward, someone who gives Hatem the option. In all honesty our forwards should be drilled into where to go when Hatem gets the ball... Most of the time they just run full pelt at the opp goal or are in such a place god couldn't find them. Anyway Pards reckons all that stuff isn't really important. nb Did enjoy that set play when Collo pretended to be inj and then ran into the box late and nearly scored.

This is my biggest annoyance. Every team in the league attacks better as a team than we do and yet we have some better players than a lot of these teams. It always seems that we have to work our arses off just to create one chance, where it seems to flow so much more naturally for our opposition. We've got no fluidity whatsoever in our play. It's so disjointed. Very little link play. ie no real link forward. (No Michu or Dempsey or the like). Ball flying over the midfield etc...Berbatov did the job for them yesterday linking the def with the attack. The closest we have is Hatem but our forwards just run like lemmings straight into the center of the box and are easily covered. Not a brain cell between em. Hatem does his best but spends that much time defending he'll be our new left back soon. I think either one would benefit from playing as a lone striker with someone like Hatem much further up the pitch than he is now. Good full backs and wide men who can cross would help too. Think me a you and others have been asking for that for about a year now.

In my experience the 'man in the street' will accept just about anything as long as it's packaged right. And that funnily enough is Pardews role: Packaging and managing expectations. That's why he seems to talk all the time about everything and things that at first glance seem unconnected. He is pushing the message 'we can't compete', we have injuries'...Mashley has done well keeping the squad together'. He ain't doing it for the sake of it, it's a big part of his role. In society in general 9.9 times out of ten change will come top down. As for internet geeks, many became millionaires and otherss changed the way we see the world.