Parky

The problem with most people is that they only see what's in front of them. HTT is a visionary.

Tevez, Mascherano. Barfa will be off, from the way the situation is going, next season. Unbelievable waste of such talent at our disposal. How to bring out the best in tortured geniuses one has to learn from the top, top managers, like Sir Bobby. Yup.

HTT has spiced the thread up nicely and created some edgy talking points. Well done mate.

That's actually not true. I don't agree with the fixation on him as being determinative of Pardew's success so far, but his productivity-to-time ratio is mightily impressive as it happens. Same amount of assists as Guti who's played nearly every game.

Ba.

Of course its all conjecture, but I think playing HBA instead of Obertan gainst Spurs would have at least kept their defenders on their toes. With Obertan, their fullback was overlapping and we were under wave and wave of attacks. FWIW, I reckon that if Ben Arfa had started against Spurs, he would have made some sort of difference. A difference from an attacking perspective anyway, I'm sure Hatem would have given BAE a rough time down the right wing and guess that would have meant more chances for us. But, not sure if Ben Arfa's presence would have changed the overall outcome. We still would have lost imo as Spurs were simply too good - they exploited our weaknesses in CM (Guthrie/Perch were overwhelmed) and defence well. Whilst it could have been a different scoreline, it still would have been a Spurs win. Bringing Ben Arfa for Obertan in the first half wouldn't have made much difference either, the game was lost as soon as the second goal went in. In all honesty, I'm kinda glad he didn't play Ben Arfa, as he'd have had little or no impact, and I think it would have been another excuse for Pardew to come out with something in the press about Ben Arfa needing to work hard to fit into the team ethos. My thoughts are the same.

It's impossible to fully cure isn't it?

Take the best players out and put shit ones in (one or two are bound to come good) and save loads of money. [/Ashley]

He was already the best player to come out of Israel....Like ever. Player nobody gives a fuck about+drop tenously into another debate+Jewish connection= Will get away with it on NO. Not with me old son.

This is made up. Good one though.

This has been too funny. I'm worried we're gonna run out of things to laugh at.

I'd drop Guti. I can only think he's in the side for his workrate, he hasn't done much else. The problem there though mate is you are going to Have Ben Arfa playing deeper, and he is going to be spending a lot of time chasing back and trying to win the ball, which would be a total waste of his talents. He needs to play in the hole, but (we couldn't push him right up as we would be playing with 3 up top and we would be overrun). For the formation you set up to work, Ben Arf would have to play where you have Ba, and again we couldn't drop him. It's much simpler than that. It's a classic 433 with 2 DM's (each DM's covers one side of the pitch - protecting full back if you like). Tiote does that already most of the time anyway. Cabaye becomes a ball playing DM with only say Guthrie with license to get forward (edge of box).

I'd like to see Hatem given the Silva role, where he picks up the ball wherever there is space. With Silva it's often wide right and then he comes inside shielding the ball as he's left footed like Hatem. Runners start to amass on the opp side or Aguero comes off the CD's. Modric is the same he often picks up the ball off center as does VDV. The formation isn't as rigid as it looks. How we play now looks like this. O.....O.......O.....O. .....................Oguti .......O.....O.... Obertan ...............OBa ........OLost

I'd drop Guti. I can only think he's in the side for his workrate, he hasn't done much else.

That's very narrow, teams will just play around us, dragging everyone out of position. ManC, Chelsea all play that way. They have good enough full backs to do it, which is the point you should have made. I also wouldn't want to see Cabaye being dragged out wide to fit that system either, because that's what will happen with the two midfielders infront of where Tiote will play. Again we are moving key players around to try and fit in Ben Arfa. It's crackers. Well carry on playing our s*** wingers than and quit moaning. ?? I am not moaning about playing wingers though? I want to see us playing wingers. Nobody plays wingers anymore. Even with Spurs and Arsenal the winger argument is moot as Bale has a free role now. The Arsenal 'wingers' come inside all the time. edit Actually Spurs are the only top side that do a fair bit of what I'd call oldskool crossing and is why Saha has been added.

That's very narrow, teams will just play around us, dragging everyone out of position. ManC, Chelsea all play that way. They have good enough full backs to do it, which is the point you should have made. I also wouldn't want to see Cabaye being dragged out wide to fit that system either, because that's what will happen with the two midfielders infront of where Tiote will play. Again we are moving key players around to try and fit in Ben Arfa. It's crackers. Mourinho has about 5 players shunting from one side of the pitch to the other covering it means nothing. Arrigo Sacchi invented it back in the day ie two DM's one a playmaker (Cabaye).

That's very narrow, teams will just play around us, dragging everyone out of position. ManC, Chelsea all play that way. They have good enough full backs to do it, which is the point you should have made. I also wouldn't want to see Cabaye being dragged out wide to fit that system either, because that's what will happen with the two midfielders infront of where Tiote will play. Again we are moving key players around to try and fit in Ben Arfa. It's crackers. Well carry on playing our shit wingers than and quit moaning.

That's very narrow, teams will just play around us, dragging everyone out of position. ManC, Chelsea play that way. They have good enough full backs to do it, which is the point you should have made.

When the two midfield lynchpins get back for Wolves we should be playing this if we want fluid, cogent football with posession in postive areas (keeping the ball alive in their half). O.......O....O......O ...........O............. ......O........O........ ..........OHBA.............. ............OBa........ .........OPapiss....

Why is he not? Most talented player in his squad just like Carlitos was at West Ham. Not saying Pardew doesnt like good players, he jusv doesnt know how to get the best out of them. Hes a classic english manager who knows and loves his graft and committed players. (which amazes me since he gives Obertan playing time). He clearly believes Ben Arfa has no part to play this season or will get his chances as soon as tiote and cabaye are back. Like I Said, Tevez/Mascherano and Ben Arfa have absolutely nothing in common style-wise other than the fact that they're good players. If you're going to claim that Pardew is biased against Ben Arfa because he doesn't like certain kinds of players, there has to be some sort of criteria. Like I said "good player" obviously isn't it, given that he's perfectly fine with playing other good players. You offer two potential answers to this question; a. He doesn't like foreign players. Given that Krul gets in ahead of Forster and Tiote/Cabaye gets in ahead of Guthrie, and Ba/Cisse gets in ahead of Shola, this doesn't seem to be the case. Why is Ben Arfa the only foreign player being discriminated against? b. He doesn't like players who don't graft. This explanation can't really apply to Tevez, given that he grafts the f*** out of every game when he's bothered and Mascherano who also tends to run around like a rabid greyhound. So if your argument is that Pardew has some sort of preconceived bias against a certain type of player that is leading him to treat all of Tevez, Mascherano, and Ben Arfa unfairly, again, you're going to have to tell me what this criteria is because I can't really figure it out. In the absence of that sort of distinction, maybe the question we should be asking is not "what's wrong with Pardew?" but "what's wrong with Ben Arfa?" At the end of the day, I don't really care about this whole song and dance. The desired end state is "win games" not "play Hatem Ben Arfa." I'm sure he has the potential to be good, probably even great, but so do a lot of players. It would be nice if he could make it work here, but If we're achieving the former a reasonable amount of times I'm not really bothered about how we're doing with the latter. So you tell us what's wrong with HBA and don't go down this work rate tosh coz he works harder than Obertan (at least based on the last game) and dam well harder than Shola. I'll tell you what's wrong with Pardew, he is an extremely negative manager whose first thoughts are always how do we not concede goal. He clearly does not believe in the idea that attack is the best defence and that by putting pressure on the opponent's defence, they are far less likely to commit men forward and over run us. To a certain extent this defense policy has worked for us in that the defending side of our games is usually quite dependable. But to go to the next level and certainly against better teams we need to take chances and attack them, make them worried about us too. This is especially so against teams with attack minded fullbacks (Bale, Cole...etc) as these full backs are either forced to stay back and defend or move up as a second winger which cause all sorts of havoc to us. Against Spurs when we were down 0-2 after 10 minutes, Pardew wasn't thinking of how we can get back into the game, instead he just stood by and hope something magical would happen. By half time, he had basically given up the game, instead of strengthening our attack and try and get us some respect back which logically would have seen HBA thrown in for some attacking impetus, he brought in Ferguson and shifted Jonas to the right to support Simpson. This was a move to strengthen both flanks defensively but for what, we were already losing 0-4. But Pardew was more worried about conceding more goals than trying to get back a few goals hence the substitutions made. Of course the Arsenal magical comeback game would sort of negate my argument, but if we are honest the fightback was more a result of the sending off and us exploiting the numerical advantage than Pardew changing tactics to be more offensive. With this mindset, HBA is going to see very few games because although he works just as hard as the rest, he is exceptional attacking wise and is the type of player that makes something happen. This is not Pardew's priority at all, he'd rather play a percentage game, get crosses in and hope one of our strikers scores whilst all the while maintaining our defensive shape. HBA said this himself in the interview that he prefers to play pass and move whereas Pardew prefers him to put crosses into the box. With this philosophy our progress will always have a glass ceiling and I doubt we'll be able to push much further than where we are now. Top post.

3-0

I did my bit by putting Bale as captain in my FF which normally completely negates him.

I used to have what he said in my sig.

The coach likes to play long and direct. 'Center it into the box,' he's always saying. Or a the variation of that which is "Hit Ba! Hit Ba!".