Dr Venkman

I think the other players are starting to expect his movement as well, hence Cabaye and Jonas playing him in on goal.

Sublime, he was pretty much falling over backwards when he did it as well.

I'd agree with that on balance. It's the manager's job to try and instil and maintain that confidence though. Reverting to awful football isn't the answer. I agree. But I'm just trying to be balanced in my opinion. It was frustrating viewing yesterday. Initially I'd say it was the players fault for resorting to long ball / deep defending, but Pardew should have sorted it. What I'm getting at though, is that it was clear that our game plan was initially to try and play "proper" football, so I'm not on the "Pardew sets up to play long ball" bandwagon just yet. I think performances like Norwich and Arsenal highlight why we should be training in a way that encourages football based on passing and moving. We tried to do it at Arsenal and essentially got nowhere and we tried to do it yesterday but stopped after 15 minutes. If the players were doing it day in day out they wouldnt look so bloody clueless on the odd occasion that Pardew decides he wants us to pass it about a bit.

Started to notice this correlation myself.

I think it highlighted the reasons the players should practice it in training.

We have a seasons worth of performances that show little correlation between possession/domination & results in comparison to the importance of simply having a very strong defensive system and attackers that will do enough to get the points. If teams have a very hard time scoring against you & you are good at putting the ball in the net, you will win games against most sides. Pardew has put in place the defensive system that achieves that & bought the attackers that do the business the other side. In what way is it likely that this will suddenly stop working? In contrast to our 'achievements' this season of playing the brand of football you just described, we have many seasons worth of performance (courtesy of the likes of Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and even Liverpool to some extent) that shows that if you do want to aim for Europe and higher, then possession football and dominating games (especially against weaker teams) is an absolute must. No team (to my memory at least) has played the type of football that we are playing and yet has proven to be consistently successful in qualifying for Europe which begs the question can we repeat this next season or is this a one season wonder? Nobody is disputing that this model is currently working for us (at least to get 6th so far), but what many are saying is that if we continue using the same model and based on the experience of the other successful teams, then we will either screw up at the finishing line or find it difficult to repeat the same form next year. If you think this season's form can be repeated every season without changing our style of play, then we just fundamentally disagree and I dare say that your view would be contrary to the evidence displayed by all the top teams (defined as qualifying for Europe through league standings) over the last few seasons. awaiting response: but look at the results, we're 6th man! I'm more than happy with the job he's done, and think when the likes of Simpson, Williamson, etc are fazed out of the starting XI next season with better, technical players, the style of football will improve even further. Until then though, it's about getting the points and wins on the board that will get us into Europe, which he's doing, and has done brilliantly for the most part all season. This is fair enough. What are the chances of him changing philosophy though? And if we get a few injuries next season will we just revert back to this awful guff? The team ethos needs to be fundamentally changed if we are to progress any further under Pardew imo. I just feel the fact the likes of Nolan & Barton were replaced by Cabaye & Obertan (crap player but I think from the style of winger he is, you can see he wants to change), and the likes of Marveaux, Santon & Ba also, that when we have more quality to go with them, he'll play a better style of football. Just raises the whole debate of who has responsibility for bringing players in imo. We'll get the proof next season either way

The benefits of tracking back.. Which he used to do anyway, before Pardew used it as an excuse to keep him out of the team in favour of Obertan. Don't claim that as a victory man.

We have a seasons worth of performances that show little correlation between possession/domination & results in comparison to the importance of simply having a very strong defensive system and attackers that will do enough to get the points. If teams have a very hard time scoring against you & you are good at putting the ball in the net, you will win games against most sides. Pardew has put in place the defensive system that achieves that & bought the attackers that do the business the other side. In what way is it likely that this will suddenly stop working? In contrast to our 'achievements' this season of playing the brand of football you just described, we have many seasons worth of performance (courtesy of the likes of Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and even Liverpool to some extent) that shows that if you do want to aim for Europe and higher, then possession football and dominating games (especially against weaker teams) is an absolute must. No team (to my memory at least) has played the type of football that we are playing and yet has proven to be consistently successful in qualifying for Europe which begs the question can we repeat this next season or is this a one season wonder? Nobody is disputing that this model is currently working for us (at least to get 6th so far), but what many are saying is that if we continue using the same model and based on the experience of the other successful teams, then we will either screw up at the finishing line or find it difficult to repeat the same form next year. If you think this season's form can be repeated every season without changing our style of play, then we just fundamentally disagree and I dare say that your view would be contrary to the evidence displayed by all the top teams (defined as qualifying for Europe through league standings) over the last few seasons. awaiting response: but look at the results, we're 6th man! I'm more than happy with the job he's done, and think when the likes of Simpson, Williamson, etc are fazed out of the starting XI next season with better, technical players, the style of football will improve even further. Until then though, it's about getting the points and wins on the board that will get us into Europe, which he's doing, and has done brilliantly for the most part all season. This is fair enough. What are the chances of him changing philosophy though? And if we get a few injuries next season will we just revert back to this awful guff? The team ethos needs to be fundamentally changed if we are to progress any further under Pardew imo.

Ahh, so you were just making it up?

How do you know? Mick Lowes tell you? looked like we were playing 4-3-3 to me. Thought Cabaye had a good game, harried them endlessly and played some really nice passes.

Me. The guy is nothing special, teams are just closing him down much more than start of the season and he can't cope with it. eh? you're over rated?

I'd be interested to hear the views of supporters of other clubs but I reckon we're in with a good shout of having the most unknowledgeable supporters in the country. 95% of the comments I hear at the match are inter-galactically stupid.

Who's over rated? Cabaye? I can't think of anyone else apart from Tiote and I reckon he's easily a top 6 midfielder.

we were indeed, I dunno though man, everything about Pardew just screams too negative to me. I don't think he's a winner, no killer instinct, far too afraid to take us where I think we can go with players like these (minus the obvious weak links who will be upgraded).

Like I said hard. Whatever name I give you there will be a problem with it. Dragan Stojkovic. That's a good shout, my only concerns are his language and his understanding towards the physical aspects of EPL. But then would people here accept him now? Probably no. Given our current status people would want "established and proven" managers instead of betting on those "unknowns". Which means we could end up managers like Hodgson. There's never going to be the perfect manager, there will always be faults somewhere, and i agree with Cajun about being wary of one season wonder mangers as well, even though Rodgers does look a bit special, it could easily fall flat very quickly for him. That was the most outside the box I could muster mind though I'm not trying to say I'm on the money with my choice, in fact it changes weekly, but what I do know is this squad will fall apart, never reach it's potential and be attacked by vultures if we stick with a manager who has shown over a lengthy period he's not willing to learn, at all. It's for the same reason Hughton went and I was understanding With that decision due to him as well not developing fast enough, the board reckoned they needed more experience and went for their choice, but over a year on it's quite obvious moments of quality from players are carrying the club and it's not down to the managers choice or tactics, we all knew at some point we'd outgrow the manager, none of us thought we'd get these kind of players in soon after relegation, maybe it's time to upgrade another part of the team, were in a good position to do so. Harsh, but there's no loyalty in football, as we all know. End of the season will do me, I really dp think well hang on one more year too long, lose one or two key players and lose the momentum, and by that time won't be able to attract a good a manager as we could this year. Aye. Was gonna post a reaction to todays game but why bother, it would just read like a reaction to 75% of the games this season with the caveat of we played well for 15 minutes and actually looked to pass it, which was a nice surprise and credit to him. You lot defending Pardew in spite of these performances are gonna be mentally worn out next season, been saying it for months now, if we improve the squad and he doesnt improve his mind set he's gonna hold us back every single week.

On what i've seen so far, great movement and good at finding space. Razor sharp when he has no time to think about it and a bit less potent when he does. 3 in his first 5 now? He's a fucking striker this lad like.

Conceded 10 and scored 0 in 2 and a half games since we played them.

Keep and use the ball better and we won't have to score so many to pick up points. It's not about being more attacking, it's about setting out a framework that allows our creative attacking players to be more influential.

I think the good performances earlier in the season were a final push toward claiming a first team place. Its clear he's given up on that now and the Wolves performance was down to that imo. It's a shame like, and it doesn't bode particularly well for today coz we need him..... One poor game doesn't mean he's given up. He was awful against West Brom last season but this season he's usually been good when called on. He needs to play well for us if he's trying to attract another club. Well if we give it credence, the article saying he's given up means he's given up.

I think the good performances earlier in the season were a final push toward claiming a first team place. Its clear he's given up on that now and the Wolves performance was down to that imo. It's a shame like, and it doesn't bode particularly well for today coz we need him.....

It's not, any time we get down to some proper criticism of Pardews strengths and weaknesses it derails the thread and we have to start again.

Lads man, you're all missing the fucking point spectacularly. It does not matter how good a manager Hughton was or wasn't, what matters is that Pardew appears to be utilising our squad in the wrong way and if he doesnt sort it out we wont finish anywhere near 6th or 7th next season and we may well have a squad very capable of it, that's worrying. STOP FUCKING TALKING ABOUT HUGHTON MAN.

shit craic on the internet is still shit craic

Fucking Hughton argument man. We're better than Hughton and if the squad improves at the same rate over the summer as it has done recently I have a feeling it'll be better than Pardew as well.