afar

I'm not watching this at work But I would take that in a heartbeat, we need to stop the slide and this was a tough game against a quality team at full strength against our mess.

Yes you can, he's basically suggesting that it will take time for Cisse to adapt to playing through the middle ! It's a stupid, stupid team selection, a huge gamble that will make him look like a genius if he pulls it off, but more than likely will end like most of us suspect.

Wonder why David Pleat isn't managing anymore ?? BBC Radio 5 live pundit David Pleat: "I think Shola Ameobi is a really improved player and he may cement his place in the side. Newcastle may go for Loic Remy to replace Demba Ba but it will be difficult for them because a lot of defenders respected the pairing of Ba and Papiss Cisse."

From a self preservation point of view it's a crazy decision, he's just put all the pressure on himself, he must feel he's untouchable. The man management of Cisse, if he plays out on the wing as we expect, is going to be a bigger issue now too !!

I'm going to be optimistic and predict a 1-3 loss, really whatever hope I had for the game just evaporated with that call, Pardew you suck man.

It was oh so predictable but completely mind boggling, losing faith Pards, crowd's gonna be on your back if they perform the way we expect them to with that lineup.

lol knew it

On another point that's a ridiculous clause we agreed too, if we agreed to put a minimum release clause in and reduced that amount still further by giving half the fee to Ba, seems to be weighed too heavily on the players side. Crazy but I guess it was the only way to get the deal done, I dunno.

Yeah that's a really good piece, I'm not sure how Edwards knows what he suggests he knows about the behind the scenes stuff, but sounds feasible to me. I think though at the end of the day it's all down to how well we cope without Ba, how Cisse performs, if we bring in someone to replace Ba and how they perform if we do. Lets hope it all works out for us, I don't really care about Ba, but looks like he's sitting pretty either way.

No I lthink it's the questioning of our manager's sanity not our own, after all he picks the team we just moan about it

I think it's a good bet that Shola will just be a straight swap for BA in the lineup !! This is how Pards thinks sometimes, I think he'll want to reward Shola for turning down the chance to go to ACON. Don't put this move past Pards at all. Would be a disaster of course though !

Absolutely and we got to remember Ba is an adult, lives in a free society and has total power over who he represents his interests.

Think after the Christmas period we had this one needs to be a positive result, but all signs point to being another let down, fellani backs is a big one for them, sure he'll have a stormer

January is a key month for us in terms of fixtures with games against reading, Villa and Norwich coming up, we need to be targeting 7 to 9 points from them, so we need to bring in a replacement fast along with Debuchy, a new CB and possibly another cm. We don't have the breathing space to piss around until the last day of the window, but I'm sure we will

Not the issue imo. All money driven. Very true, one of the things that's disappointed me throughout this saga is the mercenary nature of Demba that's shone through, I don't think he really cares who he plays for as long as he plays where he gets goals and is getting paid as much as he can. The truth of where they are in the process will come out when the team is picked today.

We've got a lot more work to do in the market before we can say yes, but I'm hopeful we can be.

Thanks for the goals Ba, and we'll miss them for sure, but in everyone's interest I think for him to move on. Cisse needs to step up now though, and if Ameobi is off to ACON then we are ridiculously light up front. If we can get in a decent replacement (Remy would do), secure Mathieu and bring in another quality CB then we'll be better off in the long run I think. But I know we have no control over the situation but it's an incredibly risky situation for a relegation candidate to lose their top score by a wide margin, in January.

Not diminishing their performance but nice to have a little break over Christmas while the team you play against has to play its toughest away fixture of the year

Started with Stanton needlessly giving away possession and a free kick.

Wow

NEither is a pl level cb , this bad performance doesn't vindicate Williamson at all.

That's fucking cruel no way did they deserve this big a win

Walcott is bloody good don't care what people say about his football IQ every time he plays against us he kills us

I think we are done from an attacking perspective

There you go did we expect anything else?