Dr Venkman

Are we fighting agains relegation because Vurnon Anita isn't physical enough? No, move on. Just mentioned in the Tiote thread, I think the reason Anita is struggling is there's just no movement for him when he's on the ball, which for a player from the Ajax academy must be pretty bewildering. Pardew needs to be putting a lot more focus on our off the ball movement. A LOT more. Ironically we'll get to see what this should look like at West Brom this weekend... This is it: Anita is undoubtedly physically weaker than most other premier league midfielders, that's a fact. However it's only an issue if opposing players have time to get close to him before he can pass the ball. If we had some decent movement around him he'd have more options (and quickly) to pass to and wouldn't feel the need to hold possession. When it's either back to Krul or over the top to Cisse he's more likely to keep hold of it too long. Tiote does it all the time, and loses possession, and he's strong.

I think Anita's pretty good

That's rubbish news. He injured that knee putting his body on the line to clear the ball, top bloke

Yeah I was going to suggest something similar, just don't stop play. A lot of times play will carry on anyway if the attacking player doesn't get it. If he does, either it's a goal/saved and out of play in which case it's a quick review. Or the keeper's got it anyway and off we go.

I don't want Carroll back but it's more to do with the fact that he's been injured/rubbish for ages. I don't think we should go back.

As long as its effective i couldn't care less if i'm honest. Me neither, I just want us to be a good team. I'd PREFER to keep it on the deck but it's not a deal breaker. A long ball, flick on, finish is very beautiful in it's own way.

Exactly, every time the goal-line technology debate comes up I raise this argument. The goal line is the least of our worries. True. I think there should be video review for every big decision, so goals/red cards/penalties. I mention stuff like that all the time, the technology's there, use it IMO. All I get back is the "it'll kill the flow of the game" etc. The fact that folks, spouting this, spectacularly miss is that the ball's only in play for about 40 minutes of the 90 (if you're lucky) as it stands. The flow of the game shit is nonsense, aside from the fact that it would be a negligible difference, I'd rather watch a game that was fair.

Exactly, every time the goal-line technology debate comes up I raise this argument. The goal line is the least of our worries. True. I think there should be video review for every big decision, so goals/red cards/penalties.

Carroll drops deep very well, he doesn't mind working outside either, he'll do out for his team. Yeah, apart from play for it if someone else offers him more money.

Can't believe this one hasn't been mentioned yet: http://mtn.ensight-cdn.com/content/tiote2_280.jpg Shooooooooooooooot!

ermmmmmm, ermmmmmmm, is he backing off from Oblivion right now!?

Aye this one does my head in too, sometimes you've got to just keep the ball for a bit.

:lol: :lol: :lol: You could fully expect someone who watched Portuguese football to think that sort of "professionalism" is perfectly acceptable. To be honest in here when our team is losing people just want to get the game going, nobody really cares about the ball positioning. But they do care about different and equally stupid things. I guess that's not very important, and it's useless to try to find some coherency in football fans judgments. I was actually laughing at the quality of his argumentation. at me or towards me?

It goes without saying that the general public are stupid as fuck. There's a bloke who sits in front of us at the match, a grown man, must be about 50. He just shouts stuff at our players, really unfunny stuff that requires less thought than breathing. A few weeks ago he was shouting 'ginger! ginger!' at Adam Campbell when he was warming up before his first appearance at home. There's a group of blokes around him who laugh at it as well. What's going on man?

3-0 FTM

For a while now I've thought that we've got a good shout for having the stupidest fans in the country. Granted, I've never actually sat with any other groups of fans whether home or away so in all likelihood we're just as stupid as the rest. Would be interesting to hear from the likes of Brummie as to what they think is average level of understanding amongst their ranks. Here's one to get us started: Fans going absolutely mental when a player places the ball ever so slightly out of the quadrant when taking a corner. Our lot did this over and over and over again on Sunday, trying their best to get the ref to come over and check it. Given that placing the ball and inch to the right or left makes no difference whatsoever to the quality of the delivery, and the fact the mackems were leading and trying to slow the game at every opportunity, this the was the exact reaction they were trying to get. It was doing my fucking head in

I think I agree with that, but I'm not sure if it's more a case of what I'm clinging to out of desperation or what. I've wondered that myself TBH. But I do think Pardew would want his team to play better football - none of our signings have been long ball players really. Howay Ian man, he's got very little to do with who we sign, it's all about price and resale value and that's the bottom line. Well nobody knows really, I fully accept that he doesn't choose all the players but I would be surprised if he doesn't have a significant input. Ok nobody knows. What we DO know is the we've watched two years of direct football, I think it's safe to say that's where Pardew feels comfortable. I also agree that if we had better players we'd play better football but that doesn't say an awful lot for the manager does it? We've watched two years of mixed football, often playing brilliantly sometimes playing poorly. When we're playing poorly more is made of the 'long ball' thing obviously. You're right that Pardew theoretically should be able to get his players to do what he wants, but in reality I don't think it's quite as simple as that. Defenders in particularly have had a lifetime of being told to play the percentages and launch it rather than lose it. I agree with everyone that we are playing too many long balls at the moment and in general we're playing badly. We had a run of 6 or 7 games playing passing football and we were fantastic, it's been completely and utterly abandoned, I can't think of many other games where we played well and passed it? Can you? There's wins over Man U and Stoke but they were direct, nothing wrong with that of course. What's even more worrying is I can't think of a game this season where we've played well, other than Bordeaux at home. Pardew's main concern is what we do without the ball, until he gets the players to focus on what we do with it I can't take your second paragraph seriously, he's not doing anything positive to affect the way we attack teams, he's severely limiting us with the rigidity based on not conceding. Even our set pieces are defensive, I'm convinced after watching it for so long that the loft to the back post is designed to stop us being caught on the break.

Which incidentally are also the same reasons 50% of our attacking play doesn't work, when we work it wide and try to get a cross in. Our other 50% is taken up by long balls over the top for Cisse.

Not necessarily, Sissoko would be pretty good picking up on knock downs from Carroll and driving on. I don't want him back either but there are ways in which it could work. I suppose yeah, but I really don't think Sissoko should be playing that far forward personally, and it will encourage our ball playing CB's to hoof long to Carroll. We do that anyway, this smacks of Pardew being so fucking braindead that his only solution to our woes is to buy a big target man, and revert to type I didn't say anything about how far forward they would be, you can knock a ball down to an on running midfielder in any part of the pitch.

Not necessarily, Sissoko would be pretty good picking up on knock downs from Carroll and driving on. I don't want him back either but there are ways in which it could work.

Don't get me wrong, I'd definitely take him over Pardew. A couple of things put me off though, the football, and the fact that I don't think it would be a long term appointment as he'd be looking for the next pay day with a CL regular. If we really want stability we need a good, positive young manager who can grow with the club imo.

I've never seen a man so negative as Pardew, it's fucking ridiculous. As well as being a negative football manager, he also uses the 'get the excuses in early' tactic for deflecting blame from his own incompetence, straight out of the Graeme Souness playbook.

Obviously I'd take Rafa over Pardew but I don't enjoy watching his teams at all. I've gone for Martinez as he ticks the most boxes. Prem experience, young, positive football, possibly looking for a new challenge soon, seems very loyal as well based on his career at Wigan. If they go down I think we could get him. Seems odd going after a relegated manager but sometimes you've got to trust your judgement based on the resources available and the football played.

Fair point, but the big picture is that both sides had their chances, and it could have gone either way. I just worry that if all this negativity is typical, it might get through to the players. It wasn't our day. Let's move on. Staggering, absolutely staggering. THE MANAGER FEEDS THEM NEGATIVITY ON A DAILY BASIS MAN.