Parky

That's an ip ban surely? Daaaaaaaaveeeeeeeeee!!!!

I agree with Jacko.

Yeah he was of the opinion there was a lot of subliminal top down pressure in La Liga. Another thing of interest was that Pep was in SA for the WC and the main 'mind' behind the team, although it was played down.

Was out with a Spanish friend last night and he was rambling on about the place after a few beers. Said Arsenal have a permanent scout there for the Sunday morning youth games. 'Merengues' will win La Liga this year he was saying cause Real have the presidency or something??

He looked class the few games he played for Chelsea.

"This residence is now used to develop the young players that have had to leave their families in order to train at FC Barcelona both in a sporting and intellectual sense. In the clubs centenary year, La Masia celebrated its twentieth anniversary and the general feedback has been very positive. Several youngsters that had lived at La Masia have gone on to play for the first team, including Amor, Guardiola, Sergi, De la Peña, Puyol, Xavi, Reina, Víctor Valdés, Gabri and Messi, as well a large number of players that have gone on to play for other Spanish clubs. So successful has it all been that many people now simply use the name La Masia to refer to Barças youth players in general. But the players residing at La Masia are not only limited to those from Catalonia or the rest of the state. There are also numerous young players from other countries..." http://arxiu.fcbarcelona.cat/web/english/club/club_avui/territori_barca/la_Masia/lamasia.html http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/04/16/article-1265747-09290424000005DC-582_634x460.jpg Cesc Fabregas, Arsenal's biggest star and among the Premier League's best players, was also nurtured here and plucked away by English scouts at the age of 16. Pepe Reina, Liverpool's highly rated goalkeeper, and Mikel Arteta, the Everton midfielder, are old boys; and Barcelona's club team manager, Pep Guardiola, one of the finest midfielders and now managers of his generation, also came through this academy, as did all his managerial assistants. This is a 'factory' for world-class footballers and it is currently at the peak of its powers. But this academy aims to shape the boys' values as well as their football skills, a holistic approach reminiscent of the Jesuit maxim: 'Give me the boy and I will give you the man.' Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1265747/Inside-FC-Barcelonas-football-academy-churning-future-Messis--free.html#ixzz1ohhbh5MV This must be the cream of blueprints to develop young players.

Really? He was a sound poster. Sadly, that's the current state of affairs on RAWK. It's become a police state since Kenny became manager. I honestly don't see the point of running a fourm like that.

Sorry for highlighting your particular post on this issue, it's not personal it was just the most recent. How on earth can people credit a manager for making the mistake of not starting your best attacking player on the park by saying he made a good move by putting him on at the start of the second half? There seems to be an obvious divide of younger fans and older ones on this board, nothing against the younger ones, and to be fair to them, this is probably the best they've seen in terms of league position as fans in their adult lives. The culture of acceptance among those is quite startling to me, having seen tenures like Pardew's an amount of times I can count on almost 2 hands now since we returned to the top flight (and I mean in 1993-1994). It's difficult to express on a forum to fans who love the club, who are obviously younger, a voice of experience while sitting behind a keyboard and a computer screen where people's automatic defensive postures are protected by a shroud of anonymity, with the tendency to pick apart well thought-out posts one sentence at a time, let alone word by word, to build a sense of an online persona. Hi Ronaldo. The over-analysis of the 4-3-3 Keegan tactic is 100% unequivocally irrelevant. The point I was making, is that such a manager of that calibre had the confidence and the nous to be able to identify a system that would possibly and logically fit the team he had at his disposal - and try it. If anyone believes for one moment Alan Pardew is doing this with our team, or even attempting to, well I don't know what I can say to you, other than ignorance is bless. If you believe that hoofing the ball long to 2 players who are incapable of playing the way they were asked to (hold up the ball/provide the second ball) is the correct thing to do, and simply blame Krul for his 'poor distribution', I must politely ask you perhaps post a little less and read a little more from those that do know what they are talking about. This won't happen, but I can still ask all the same. I could walk the forum through, player by player, how as a squad, where we sit compared with other squads we've had in all our team in the Premier League and show you that we are almost as strong now as we've ever been compared to previous squads. But some people will just refuse to concede a point, as this is an internet forum where you cannot be wrong, just to save face. So I'm not going to waste the keystrokes, people with the experience following this club know this anyway. If people are happy, let them be happy. But those people that do seem to be happy, also seem to be the ones saying things like the tactical 'masterstroke' of putting HBA on at half time, Krul's poor distribution and how poor our front 2 were yesterday were of no fault of the manager, and this is quite simply wrong. As a fan of 22 years I can very confidently say that Hatem Ben Arfa is one of the most confident and technically skilled players we've ever had in my time, and I would humbly suggest that others who have seen us for longer would agree also, as prior to when I started watching us we weren't exactly in the best of shape until a lot further back. How a football manager cannot accommodate his best player is at the least troubling at any level, but how a Premier League Manager cannot accommodate his best player is shocking. Rewind to Bellamy under Souness, arguably our best player at the time. Due to the nature of this debate and where it's occurring, I know I'm never going to 'win', nor am I trying to - that would be impossible. But you cannot argue with the facts - we are 6th, we are performing as well now as under Roeder, Souness, Allardyce, Dalglish or Gullit. Each and every one of those managers, were found out when results caught up with their performances as the tactics and the management were simply not up to the level required. How many of those managers have gone on to any degree of success after leaving here? Zero. Because they were all poor, and I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Alan Pardew is in exactly the same bracket. How long he lasts will be how long he can be carried by the outstanding individual quality of 5-6 of our players. A good PR man for the club, a good man-manager and a good manager at being able to relate to the fans (although how much of this is down to John Carver's presence is conspicuous). There is a reason managers sacked over and over again at smaller clubs in lower leagues don't strike it lucky at a Premier League club - because they are simply not good enough, and most Premier League chairmen would never hire a manager with his record, it's the basics of recruitment. Take a look at his CV and his reasons for having left his previous clubs and every single chairman would run a mile - except a chairman like Mike Ashley - a track record of being a risk-taker and having an impulsive business mantra. I suppose I better be quiet now and cut all hopes of ever challenging at the top of the table again, just how Mike Ashley likes it. One fine post fella.

Personally don't think he will change the system, it can also be argued he doesn't really have the players to change it to a more fluid 433. What he can do however is cut out the nonsense like hoofing from the back and get the side to move up the pitch together with short passes. This is the very least one can expect from professional footballers? Non?

For 30 or so minutes yesterday where it went like this I'd beg to disagree: Krul - hoof - mackem header wins ball, they attack we clear our lines - hoof. Repeat repeat repeat. We were f***ing awful yesterday and its more depressing given the quality of our players, players with the attributes to play really good football. Your ludicrous OTT criticism, really undermines a lot of your points, many of which are valid. We were poor first half and constantly threatening in the second. Give over man, given the occassion and the quality we have, to - for 30 minutes or so - kick it long whenever we got on the ball be it from Krul, the defence, the wide players and even Ba - is as bad as it gets and was some of the worst stuff I've seen us play. Hundreds around me were all saying similar."Big Sam would be proud of this" was a common comment example and whenever Krul launched it long which he did all game, there was massive groans. It used to be nothing was as bad as Souness but now its nothing is as bad as Big Sam. I say bull shit. Watch 30 minutes in the first half of yesterday and that's as bad as anything he served up, especially given the players we have. What is it? Is it prozone or prozac?

I need convicing that Pards has see the light with Hatem, after every good performance he's said the same things about him being brilliant and so on..For me he needs to start 5/6 on the trot which will go some way to making it clear that their is real belief in the player and not just fair weather words.

Is there any reason you can think of he perseveres with his ridiculous gameplan? I mean he must be able to see its dire effects on the pitch...Isolated strikers, no creativity and so on...

Penny might be dropping. Pardew reserved special praise, however, for Hatem Ben Arfa, who stepped off the substitutes' bench at half-time to produce an outstanding individual display full of creativity and threat in the final third. "This guy is exceptional. I don't want our fans to start thinking I don't think this is a good player," explained Pardew. "He is special and we have got to get him on the pitch. I've got to find a way of getting him on the pitch to play like that, because that was his best 45 minutes. "We've got 11 games to go and he can cause some real damage. He was the big difference between the sides in terms of the technical quality. "You need a technical player who can unlock the door - he did it about four times and we were unlucky not to get a goal in those moments. It was a big game for him."

Well duh. Because hes done so well with a squad much better than ours ? The Chelsea squad are looking after themselves. He's come in to freshen things up, that means get rid of old players on huge wages, said players have decided not to play for him because they don't want to be forced out of a cushy number. Its quite simple why it hasn't worked, player power to the extreme. Big job for a man whose younger than some of his players, a step too far but a miles better manager than Pardew regardless how it turned out at Chelsea. Think that's basically it.

Nailed.

Spot on.

Another 2 points dropped at home cause of his wank tactics.

He has to start.

But the first half is HOW HE WANTS TO PLAY. Fast and direct to the forwards.

Has to start games.

Had the whole defence panicking nearly every time he drifted toward the pen area while jinking and dribbling.

There was no clearer example of the last 45min WHY HATEM SHOULD START EVERY GAME.

Just give Hatem the ball ffs!!

What are they fukin doing? Overload the middle ffs!!