merlin

Unfortunately, we had a severe storm here in WA last night and that led to a power cut for several hours which meant I missed the game and couldn't even record it. Maybe I was lucky... However, everything seems to have been very predictable and proceeded much as I would have expected before the game. I NEVER predict scorelines seriously, but my wife asked me what I thought it would be and I was spot-on with the guess. City would never have to seriously get into top gear to beat the current side and especially when managed by Pardew. The weaknesses we knew existed before the season started(Colo's loss of pace etc and he was never the quickest, Williamson's limitations plus no proven top class striker signed)were capitalized on by City and they obviously just did enough to win comfortably. Undoubtedly, some of the players will get better as they adjust to the PL, but under this manager they are never going to realise their potential and we will never do that as a club either whilst the ship is spoiled for want of a ha'porth of tar. On to Villa Park and the REAL examination begins....

This. Think some of our crowd at SJP are just puppets. No - just idiots...calling them puppets is an insult to Miss Piggy and Kermit...

If the club are doing a deal with the Sun, you can bet your boots that ALL Murdoch's outfits, incl SKYSPORTS will have been told to go easy on Pardew by Ashley & Co as a part of the deal.

Pardew is fireproof until his teams start a losing run similar to that last season or the season before...far too many fans are dying to sweep his failures under the carpet and whereas under KK or SBR we would have been having an inquest into a home defeat on the first day of the season with several new players in the side, now you find that many are happy with a semi-respectable defeat and a bit of huff and puff in the second half. Christmas before there is ANY chance of him going unless the team collapses spectacularly in the next 6 matches.

Unfortunately, for those of us who want Pardew out, I think City will be happy enough just to win the game and preferably keep a clean sheet. From what has been seen in his earlier appearances and record at Ajax, de Jong is going to be a big miss today - perhaps even more than Tiote as Colback can step in. I NEVER forecast results but will be surprised if we get anything.....nothing is a dead cert in football, esp where NUFC are concerned, but cream usually rises to the top and they have far more of it than we do. That also applies in the dug-out....

Man U will probably have a reasonable season once Van Gaal sorts out who he wants and what sort of system those players will do best with but there are NO guarantees ; they did this before in the early 70s after the side of Best Law and Charlton started to fade. People remember us beating them 5-0 at SJP in 1996, but we also beat them 5-1 at SJP when they were on the wane at the start of the 70s. When a club has a dynastic and dictatorial manager like Ferguson(and, in a different way, Busby)it is going to mean a big hole at the centre of the club when they go...they have a massive commercial base though and will spend but even that doesn't guarantee the type of unbroken success they have enjoyed in the past 20 years. It will be very interesting to watch it all unfold.....

The virtual desperation by some fans to believe everything at SJP is now rosy is almost certainly fuelled by their desire to see justification for their retention of season tickets, despite all the evidence against....the club still has a proven failure(sacked by all previous employers)as manager, they have not spent any more than they raked in from sales and apart from the fact that the players coming in are all raw to the PL apart from Colback, there are glaring deficiencies at CB and CF. The jury is well and truly out on the new season until at least 6 games have been played and if we are struggling after that, the fall of inflated expectations will be something to behold and instead of asking Pardew for a wave, his 'fans' will be waving at him...with 2 fingers only. We shall see.

Highly unlikely that Cisse will ever show the form that he displayed when he first arrived. His confidence is shot after playing under Pardew for so long and he is over 2 years older...his pace off the mark was never a strong point and will have declined even more now so I am not optimistic about his contribution. Probably could be used best a nuisance value to create space for new arrivals. Our style of play doesn't suit his type of striker at all. Hope I'm wrong...

Agree with this, I see all this talk of getting yet another striker and wonder what we're gonna do with them all? I think it's almost certain we'll only be playing a one striker system with de Jong behind, that leaves you Cisse, Riv, Chucky and Ayoze + new striker all competing for one place. Then Gouff, Armstrong etc. as well I think a big part of the problem is that our defense plays so deep that there is a massive gap between them and the midfield and they end up just having to play oofball We unquestionably DO need a PL standard CB, maybe even 2...Colo has been excellent for most of the past 5 years but he is clearly on the wane now and the other two are not good PL standard in my view but the club has ignored this weakness or, once again, failed to pay the going rate for what we need. The striker thing keeps cropping up because most people have doubts about the ability of the ones signed to either adapt quickly to the PL or because they are either inexperienced (Perez, Armstrong)or have a less-than-impressive scoring record previously(Riviere). Ferreyra is the wild card for me, he could prove reasonable or flop...it will be interesting to see what happens. We must hope Cisse benefits from the input of our new midfielders but I am not very confident..!

In order to have a decent chance of reaching the Top 6, a team needs at least ONE striker capable of scoring 20 goals a season and another capable of reaching 12-15. You then need the advanced m/fielders to get 10 or 15 between them with the rest of the team getting another 10...this gives you a total of 60 goals, given the most optimistic outcome - this is less than 2 per game in the PL. Work out how likely we are to score even ONE per game and you can see what a daunting task it is for the new players to do the business - esp as our defence looks incapable of many clean sheets - without a player up front who can hit the net on a regular basis. Supermac used to target himself 30 goals a season in the 70s and on the occasions he wasn't out injured for a long period, he managed it, with usually between 20-25 in the League. Don't say it was easier then because there were some good defenders about too and there aren't many players around now who could match Macdonald's pace - 10.9 secs to do 100 metres....in 75-76, he and Gowling got about 50 between them and even allowing for better organized defences, the equivalent today is about 30-35 for the 2 main strikers. Modern midfields are closely contested and crowded, so only a player like Cabaye could get any sort of reasonable goal return the way NUFC play under Pardew...Cisse looks a shadow of the striker that joined us in 2012 and has never looked as deadly again.He lacks pace off the mark and that won't improve at his age...also, he and any other striker, gets little decent service from the flanks as the slow build-up gives opposition sides plenty of time to get back in numbers and mark our front players.

That would be a disaster - apart from the fact he'd be a lousy manager(and have to ask his wife if she approved of his team selections), he is a bought-and-paid-for Ashley stooge.

Actually, we don't. We need a decent manager. We've known this for almost 2 years....unfortunately, Ashley doesn't agree or won't part with the compo needed to pay off the idiot he gave an 8 year deal to, courtesy of Lambsarse. Unless we bomb for the first 8 games, it will be Christmas before Pardew is in any danger at all ; if Ashley was going to get rid, he had ample opportunities over the past 2 seasons but still won't pull the trigger. Pardew suits his purpose unless we are in danger of relegation.

This - in spades....

This is right - we need CBs who can go into the team NOW, and I find it ridiculous that the club have let Lascelles go back to Forest for the season; if he's as good as they think he is, surely he could have done a job here. Let's face it, Colo is going to struggle for pace this year but his experience and reading of the game would have helped Lascelles to settle in and gain experience. Neither Saylor nor Williamson are PL quality so CB is a position that could cost us big time this season. As for Darlow, we don't know yet whether Krul will still be here in Sept..just as people are speculating that we 'could make more signings' there is just as much chance of either Tiote or Krul going out of the door at the last minute so we may have needed Darlow, No, this double signing just smacks to me of Ashley seeing a great chance of making quick money on these guys, especially Lascelles, and the fact that Arsenal wanted to buy him - and pay relatively big money for a youngster - would have had him licking his lips. It actually wouldn't surprise me if Lascelles NEVER played for our first team but was sold on....... Agreed with the second paragraph, but that only counters your first paragraph. Maybe there's another central defender on the way, or maybe Pardew's been told to use MWM :/ Using MYM under a better manager might be a goer - a disaster under this guy, who retards every player he gets to coach(I use the word loosely)...I hope your guess about a new CB is correct, but as for contradicting myself, that's what you have to do when trying to second-guess what the people running NUFC are going to do...

I wouldn't bet my house on THAT, TRon....remember who is in charge..!

This is right - we need CBs who can go into the team NOW, and I find it ridiculous that the club have let Lascelles go back to Forest for the season; if he's as good as they think he is, surely he could have done a job here. Let's face it, Colo is going to struggle for pace this year but his experience and reading of the game would have helped Lascelles to settle in and gain experience. Neither Saylor nor Williamson are PL quality so CB is a position that could cost us big time this season. As for Darlow, we don't know yet whether Krul will still be here in Sept..just as people are speculating that we 'could make more signings' there is just as much chance of either Tiote or Krul going out of the door at the last minute so we may have needed Darlow, No, this double signing just smacks to me of Ashley seeing a great chance of making quick money on these guys, especially Lascelles, and the fact that Arsenal wanted to buy him - and pay relatively big money for a youngster - would have had him licking his lips. It actually wouldn't surprise me if Lascelles NEVER played for our first team but was sold on.......

His spoutings about CL and attacking football are just the result of the club panicking about the likely failure of STs to sell out. Pardew couldn't lie straight in bed, let alone think the club can challenge for CL football...he's spent the last couple of years saying that the club cannot compete with the 'top'clubs, supporters shouldn't expect much blah blah.... If Ashley/Charnley told him to tell the fans that the pitch at SJP was really sky-blue instead of green, he would do it. I wouldn't trust Pardew to manage a Whelk stall in London, let alone the club that NUFC is capable of being and yet, here he still is after nearly 3 years in charge -is this the longest spell he's ever had at a club apart from Reading..? If NUFC REALLY had CL ambitions, we would have competed for Lukaku instead of letting him go to Everton and signed a PL-standard CB, maybe even 2. The one consolation we have is that if the club get off to a bad start and we struggle after 5 games, I believe the crowd WILL start to get on his back and Ashley will start to squirm...... Don't know what NUFC fans have done to deserve either Ashley OR Pardew for so long....must be Karma for Fat Fred firing Sir Bob in the way he did.

This is probably the closest assessment of the Pardew situation. Only if we are close to, or in, the bottom 4 is he likely to be sacked at Christmas - even Ashley surely isn't stupid enough to fire him much later than that and because of the compensation due, will be reluctant to pull the trigger anyway. However, if we struggle badly and play poorly as well, things could happen even before Christmas. Last season he had a decent start to hide behind as well as Cabaye being sold but Ashley will expect an improvement this time after the layout of cash.

Agree with this too - CB is a real weakness and NONE of them are now good enough. Colo was the only good one and he is rapidly going over the hill...doesn't want to be here either.

Its the same every year under this regime, Mick - people get all excited because some players have been signed to basically replace the ones who have gone but up front, anyone with 2 brain cells knows the team is lightweight and short of quality. As signing top strikers is the most expensive part of team construction, it is obvious that we are not going to see a really decent one arrive because Ashley won't pay the going rate. Strikers also have more choice about where they go, so if they have the chance of a more ambitious club, they will go there. Just because we have got a couple of results against A-League sides - not the best ones either - people start thinking the geese have turned into swans but then, once a DECENT side is the opposition, you can see the holes appear and, as aussiemag has pointed out, Malaga only drew with Perth Glory and they also are not a top A-League side. In fairness, pre-season games often produce strange results but in their heart-of-hearts, everyone knows that Pardew is a crap manager and won't even get the best out of the players available once the action starts for real. Unfortunately, there are some real dumb-clucks among NUFC fans these days and they will still be asking the con-man to give them a wave in December.....

Have never seen this guy play and will reserve judgment on him until I do....

The worry is that throughout Pardew's tenure we've always struggled badly when he's not had one player in white-hot goalscoring form over a particular period. Cisse's done it before of course, but looks a shadow of the player he did when he joined. It was Carroll, then Ba, then Cisse, then Ba again, then Remy. Cabaye was the only other player that was scoring fairly regularly during that time and obviously he's gone. Pardew evidently needs one player to take the responsibility for scoring the majority of our goals. I know little about our signings; do we have that one player? Great post Dave and you are right to pose the question...do we have that one player ? As things stand, NO and we won't make it up among the midfielders either....

It's not his job to run the club. His job is to do what Ashley tells him because he isn't there to do it himself. Everything is set up the way he wants it so it'll not change, no matter who's the MD. Hes the MD man, its his job to run the club. What the hell do you think he's supposed to do? So if nothing will change, which I understand it won't - he'll never get any credit or plaudits from me. I'm not in the business of high-fiving someone who isn't doing the things required to make this club respectable again. I'm hard to please, I guess. He runs the club in name only. He has the same decision making power as Llambias and Kinnear had, which is zero. NUFC is a dictatorship and has been since our relegation when Ashley started to lose money. Ashley decides transfer budget, Carr decides on players, Charnley gets the best deal he can for them with the money available, Pardew makes new players look handicapped. It's really as simple as that. Mainly this - Charnley is just a puppet for Ashley, as are all employed at SJP.

Stephen Best II @helloIamBesty · 5m Loads of haircuts in Score Draw replica shirts letting flares off. Stephen Best II @helloIamBesty · 14s Songs about Messrs Alder and Sweeney followed by the "Shola from Fenham" monstrosity. Brain dead Honestly feel like I've got absolutely f*** all in common with a large percentage of our supporters anymore. You are probably right Wullie...I feel the same.

Since when did Pardew improve ANY player, let alone one who was a French International ay a relatively young age...?