afar

But logically the ref thought it was a foul, or he wouldn't have given a pen. If he thinks it's a foul, then he has to apply the law. I know what you mean, but I think the occasional situation like this is the price we pay for having a rule in place to stop deliberate dirty defending. On the other hand, I've always though a suspension is way too harsh. No need for it except for violent conduct. The suspension I think came in a long time after the law was added. I'm in two minds about it, again it's a deterrent and I think football needs as many of those as it can get.

I still can't make my mind up about his ability to perform on a bigger stage. Games like last night shows frailty in his abilities, I think one moment captured it for me, when Wigan had that free kick 25 yards or so out and ended it passing back to the keeper. Too often last night especially in the first half they tried to play too much football at the back and were caught. But then there are performances last year against us and Manure where you think this guy has something special about him.

So you need the red card to avoid strikers getting clattered at all costs? It's a man's game, dude. You need the red card to prevent defenders deliberately stopping goals by breaking the laws. If it becomes a rational course of action to do so, you're left with a pretty farcical game. Exactly. What my original post said was that defenders would just deliberately foul forwards all the time, because the penalty might be missed. And that's exactly why the rule was introduced, because that was happening all the time.

And just keep giving away pelanties ? I understand where Ian is coming from. The history of this law comes from when defenders on the line would simply handle the ball to stop it going in, if I remember rightly, yeah you give away a penalty but at least you have a second chance, if they don't score, your team escapes with just a yellow card. If Ba doesn't score that pen last night, we would have received nothing for the incident. Which would've represented justice, tbh. If you make a mistake and the opponent fails to take advantage of it, that's that. So by cheating you get a second chance for justice to be served then ? The red card acts as a deterrent that stops defenders taking the law into their own hands. Funny cos before the rule was implemented everyone was screaming for it to be introduced.

And just keep giving away pelanties ? I understand where Ian is coming from. The history of this law comes from when defenders on the line would simply handle the ball to stop it going in, if I remember rightly, yeah you give away a penalty but at least you have a second chance, if they don't score, your team escapes with just a yellow card. If Ba doesn't score that pen last night, we would have received nothing for the incident.

A forearm push is not a shoulder charge, I honestly don't understand how people can't see the difference.

I'm not sure about that. He wasn't tested very often but when he was he filled me with terror everytime he was near the ball.

What's the point in Jonas really ??

Pardew fucking sucks with this sitting back crap

Half time killed us. Pardew able to exert his influence. I agree with MacManaman we need to be pushing higher up the pitch.

Sitting back

Good sensible sub by Pardew and Martinez too

Watch the replay, The wigan defender is idiotic, he clearly pushes Cisse off the ball it's in the penalty area Cisse would have had a clear chance of a goal. It was as easy a decision as I think you will see. That happens outside the box it's a foul every time. It's not that easy a decision as we had a very similar one on Pienaar last week which wasn't given. Bundled over in the box and didn't get the ball, very similar. Zero consistency. I agree with you on consistency. I haven't seen the Pienaar incident but if it was anything like that it was a penalty. You see the guy's arm clearly move in a pushing motion towards Cisse, pushing him off the ball, if he doesn't do that and just use his shoulder to ease Cisse off, which he could easily have done, it's a good defensive play. Seeing some of the pens given nowadays, like Torres's against us early on this season, then this one was a bloody easy one to give.

Christ almighty

LOL

Watch the replay, The wigan defender is idiotic, he clearly pushes Cisse off the ball it's in the penalty area Cisse would have had a clear chance of a goal. It was as easy a decision as I think you will see. That happens outside the box it's a foul every time.

Wigan by rights should be down to 9 men now. Good half but not impressed at all by Wigan and their own stupidity.

They are rightfully p*ssed man. It was a 50/50 challenge which Figueroa not only came first to but also won. LOL it was a clear foul !!! If Ba misses the pen and the ref choses not to follow the law, then how would that have been fair on us.

WTF are wigan complaining about, it's the law, it was perfectly implemented by the officials.

The too good to go down line of thought is being played here. We clearly in my mind a least have way too many quality players to have to worry about relegation. However we were in the same position a few years back and we dropped. There is a difference though this time around. We don't have the side show of a fan base angry at the ownership for stupid decisions. We don't have a managerial merry go around going on with a crazy caretaker with health issues taking over then getting ill again. And most importantly we have a much better dressing room with many more honest pros in there. I don't therefore think there is a lot of similarities with 2008/9, but having said all that, something clearly has to change, something is seriously wrong, the form has been poor all season and now we've been getting the result that form has deserved. I worry about Pardew's ability in a relegation fight, he's proved in the past that he struggles in those situations. Seeing quite where the next win is coming from is frankly extremely difficult, and copled with a tough month of fixtures coming up and a few teams below us starting to pick up, like Southampton and I'm sure Redknapp will get QPR going, we should be well and truely worried right now, which frankly is not good enough.

Wow we're in freefall now.

Seriously ? Not watching this but just how do we let Stoke score 2 goals in a game, deserve to lose.

He so easily detestable isn't he, that freaking baseball cap, love to knock that fucker from his head.

Aren't we the Long ball merchants now ?

It's all because they play not to get beat, that's all they do. They are like the Mackems in many ways, lots of draws, biggest wins will be 1-0. I watched a lot of their game against QPR recently, despite the form QPR were in they dominated the ball but Stoke just put ten men behind the ball when QPR had possession. Obviously QPR weren't good enough to break them down but they did make a lot of chances. Once Stoke got their goal, the game was over. They don't care how good they look at home they play with the same mentality as they do away which is defend in depth and hope to snatch a goal so they can defend the lead. It's not that they are a great team at all, they are distinctly average but their mentality lends itself to being hard to score against. They are where they are in the league, lower mid table for a reason. If we go there and match their negative tactics, we may have success because they have no clue how to play the dominate role. A lot of that sounds like us, only we've not been strong enough at the back, like they have to hold onto clean sheets, like we were last season.