Beren:
Very similar to the reverse fixture with a much fairer result. Interesting and edifying to see that half a season on, the attitude of the board appears to have swung dramatically having watched very similar performances. Judging from the match thread, I think the same level of anger would be directed at the team/Pardew, even if we had undeservedly snuck a 2-1 win this time too.
Whilst before there was acceptance, and indeed happiness, that "some days you will play badly and get grind out a result" and that we must not grumble/must accentuate the positives,.... if you continue to apply that over the course of a season bar a handful of times (and I do mean maybe four or five, here), people will become disgruntled.
Pardew has wonderful resources at his disposal and for all the credit he deserves for guiding us to 6th in the table at the end of February, we should really analyse what he's working with here.
Tiote, Cabaye, Ba, Krul and Colo are incredible players IMO. Beneath that, you've got some real talent in Jonas, HBA and Santon. After that you've got decent players - nowt incredible, but people who can do the simple stuff, work hard and fit into a decent system around such a strong core of other more influential players. [Excluding Cisse for the moment, until more is known].
Pardew can take credit for bringing some of those players in, but in terms of shaping a team out of them, he's done a poor job. The evidence for that have been performances - nothing quantifiable that I can back up with stats I'm afraid, just what you can see with your eyes. We don't control possession, we don't dominate games or dictate the tempo of games... ever really. We are lethal with our chances for the most part, we play a direct style and we have ground out results commendably.
A good passing team doesn't happen overnight, but I see very little progress being made and if/when the results start to fade, more people will begin to ask Pardew very credible questions. Cabaye might ask him when this passing football he promised will happen, for instance.
Today was just one match, but it was (on a very small scale!) a little bit heart-wrenching to see HBA play. He seemed so much more inhibited, hesitant and burdened in his decision-making. He's obviously try to impress Pardew with his workrate, tracking and other aspects of his play - and it all looked a bit forced and unnatural to me. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that it's a team game and individuals shouldn't be prioritised above the team, but I don't really want to see HBA chasing back to our corner flag. If we had a right-back who didn't abrogate responsibility for marking to any willing covering newcomer in that zone, it wouldn't be an issue but I digress.
My point is that HBA shouldn't be coached into being Ryan Taylor. We have Ryan Taylor for that. He is HBA and should be let loose unbridled, a la Laurent Robert - he looks so fucking overly-wrought out there mentally.
I said at half-time I was not worried and that goals changed games - I did not anticipate that Pardew/the team was happy cede momentum for the remainder of the match - I naively hoped it was just to take the sting out of the game until half-time. Having watched Pardew's love of defending slim leads by throwing on Perchs and Guthries, perhaps I should have known better.
Pardew has bought himself a lot of affection/time with our results this season, but despite numerous and repeated warnings, he still has a tremendous amount of work to do in getting us to play better football because eventually results will always begin to reflect performances*.
