Dr Venkman

What are you talking about? We're 17 games into the season, that's not a rough patch. They've been better than us over those 17 games, that's not acceptable.

This absolutely has to stop now.

We shouldn't be anywhere near them in the table given the players available to each club.

We're below Villa after 16 and a half games. Below, Villa.

There was something going on between Kolarov and out lot when he was warming up.

It's all very well playing 'pretty well' but there's still no clue about how to move up the pitch as a team and attack, and that doesn't change week to week no matter who we're playing. I expect results to pick up in the new year when Cabaye, Ben Arfa, Anita are all on the pitch at the same time, and I'm still not panicking, but the improvement is only marginal isn't it? Did we deserve anything at Fulham? Not for me. Did we deserve anything today? No, we were clearly second best. This Jonas thing needs to stop like, it's like Allardyce with Smith all over again.

Just seen teeth girl in the block below us. That's the best thing that'll happen today.

Hull was dire when I went there to stay with my friend at Uni. Then again I'm used to my Surrey bubble, so my views are gonna be a bit skewed aren't they. Yep, Hull's dreadful.

Only been to Oldham once, working all day, straight there, job, straight home, so I can't comment but if its owt like other parts of greater Manchester like Stockport and Rochdale and Wigan then I can imagine how bad it is... Boro is pretty bad like, well, the people seem worse off anyway. Again, they look ill and fucked up. Aye it's not pretty but they've got like, industry and that.

birkenhead? Never been. Wrexham?

Boro's not as bad as Sunderland like, at least they've got the University. I'm not having that anywhere in the UK is as bad as Oldham, it's just impossible.

If he's out for a while I'll actually start to believe we could go down.

Isn't that essentially what we told Ba in the second half of last season though..? Aye, with one key difference in the outcome.....

Wouldn't be betting on the Mackems to win at home like.

The problem is that the result and performance don't exist in isolation because we needed to win tonight as it was our last realistic chance of an away win before the middle of January (and I'll tell you now that we'll get fuck all at Carrow Road). We're long past the point where we can take encouragement from any sort of performance unless we've given someone a real battering or been robbed by a ref and that certainly wasn't tonight. They missed much better chances than we did. Well we can take heart in it if you want us to start playing good passing football with 3 in midfield. Because we've started playing it. We've played like shite all season and I'm convinced we've been told to play that direct football up until now. In which case it's a bit much to expect us to immediately switch into an incisive attacking unit as soon as we switch it. I hope we stick to this sort of system/style until the end of the season, because it'll start working. Yes we attempted to pass it around, I'll give you that. Just a shame it looked totally like a Pardew after thought instead of something drilled into the team from day one. If we had a coach who really believed in it we might have worked out how to put it to good use by now instead of resorting to Shola and hoof-direct at the first sign of trouble. Completely and utterly this. It's everything we were talking about last season. Default style of play, rigid, don't move, kick it at the lad up front. Until that changes we're going nowhere.

I take your point about the change in attitude to the passing football. However the real worry is that it's a last resort, with these players. Pardew could and should have addressed our style of play over the summer, every fan knew what our problems were last season and what this team of players should be focusing on in most games. He doesn't believe in passing football, unless he changes his outlook quickly he's not turning this group of players around. The formation change and passing attitude us a positive but it needs to be a constant thing that we work on throughout the club.

My feelings exactly. It's every week, we can only take advantage of a game when it's gift wrapped. We NEVER look like a team or more than the sum of the parts. We're the Mackems with a few better players.

Or just...watch a game or two

hahahahahahahaha!! Please tell me those quotes aren't real!

God bless you Ian. Forget the average fan, they're morons, focus on the criticisms given on this board as it's all that's worth discussing.

I'm excited for you

Shidiots.