merlin

Looks a great prospect - we were far better on the left once he came in and for a newly-arrived young player from abroad he has adapted really well.

I am happy if the likes of Cabaye and Cisse do that - Santon needs to improve his defending before trying to score 'belters'...look at Barry Venison, took him ages to get one but nobody cared because he was a good FB..

A much-needed win which will take some pressure off the club for a while and enable them to prepare fpr a tough return match with Anzhi on Thursday. This was a game that we could easily have lost but for 2 pieces of brilliance which stood out from the plodding efforts to break down a dour Stoke side...none of the champagne stuff we had in the same match last season. Cabaye was once again our best and most talented player - without a doubt a worthy captain in future, but bigger clubs will have been salivating over his shrewd passing, committment and inch-perfect free-kick which gave us a deserved equalizer when we desperately needed it...if he had missed, Stoke would have reorganized and battled for the 3 points - Cabaye's brilliant FK took the wind straight out of their sails. Then Marveaux produced another superb defence splitting pass right on the death, to give Cisse(who had been dire)the easiest of chances thanks to Wilson playing him onside. Before all this, we had huffed and puffed but the lack of rapid movement and passing off the ball up front and when breaking from defence made it easy for Stoke to pick us off...only Cabaye really threatened their goal in the first half with a couple of long range efforts although Gouffran missed a sitter in the box. Debuchy was a constant thorn in their side down the right, but Santon was poor - we improved considerably once Haidara came on and he is a much better defender in my view. Sissoko did plenty of running but often into blind alleys and although the CBs looked OK most of the time, Mbiwa had a couple of shaky moments . Cisse is not the quickest of strikers but even the pace he had seems to have deteriorated - he had a clear chance to breakthrough in the first half and allowed the defender to catch and dispossess him in the box...worrying and we need a striker with pace in the summer. We had plenty of possession - 58% - but failed to really make it count due to not punishing them in the final third of the field...a quicker build up is necessary to unsettle this sort of side but NOT long balls from defence.. Relieved to get the win and now only 7 points will ensure PL football next season.

Agree with this - Santon is not a good defender and whilst he looks good going forward, his constant need to keep trying to cross with his right foot, or cutting inside makes him predictable for defenders. I thought we looked a more balanced side - and more effective - when he was replaced by Haidara in the second half.

The return will be one of the toughest games to watch in quite a while because 0-0 is not a good scoreline in this competition...it is only one notch up from outright defeat as the away side only needs to match whatever the home side does to go through. In this case, they have players capable of punishing us on the break so it will take a very disciplined performance right through the side to get a result. We need an early goal to make them come out and the worst thing that could happen is an early score for them..that will put more pressure on the side to get it back quickly and then to get another, so its really tough. I wouldn't like to see it go to pens either..... Far from certain that we will go through and it will be a great result if we do.

I don't think it's bashing when you show concern to the lads poor defensive play, especially when you consider he is a defender. Call me old fashioned but i prefer my full back to be a good defender above all else, then you look for one who has good forward play too. This - absolutely.

NUFC became just another business to him once the fun stopped. The setup is now in place to keep it ticking over, build it to a point of self sustainability, or even a little better. Do you think the welts are healed enough for him to enjoy throwing more (in all likelihood irrecoverable) money at it again? It wasn't my speculation - came from the Business pages of the Express. I have no idea what Ashley has planned and neither do they in reality - I posed the question simply because it IS a possible option. I gather you are convinced it won't happen ; Ashley wouldn't want to let it be known even if he DID have that in mind and rightly so.... You didn't answer the rhetorical questions, though....

Interesting point - Ashley has just cashed in 100m worth of shares in SD..there is speculation as to what he will do with it and it seems to be a toss-up between buying a stake in House of Fraser, or spending it on the team. How many feel he would still be happy to keep Pardew at the helm if this does happen..? How many on here would be happy with 100m worth of players arriving to be coached by the current manager..?

This blows my f***ing mind, bloke at work pipes up with it all the time. 20% for the manager? I Someone else said it I think, even if this was true you can judge a manager by what he does to change things when they're not working. I shouldn't have to explain that any further. Pardew is not a good manager, he's not a terrible one, but he's certainly not good enough for us. Someone should tell Fergie he can have 20% credit for the last 25+ years ffs. Agreed - think back - if you are old enough, or were interested in the club at the time - to when we fired Ardiles in Feb 1992 and appointed KK ... there was an immediate difference in the way the team approached games, far less fear and obviously more motivation. We still struggled to avoid the drop but had Ardiles remained, we would have gone down - no question about it. Then, with a bit of surgery, but not as much as the current squad have had over the past year, we walked promotion the following season. Was THIS 20% down to KK..? I don't think so, and neither would anyone with half a brain. A manager makes a HUGE difference to the way a team plays and therefore, to the results.

1. How long do you wait ? 2. Do you think any of this is down to the way the team is set up to play..?

Look what happened in Scotland - its been like that for years but nobody in England thought it mattered... Different now....

On the other hand, if we'd made those signings in the summer like we should have, I bet we'd have been a lot nearer the top 8 and Pardew wouldn't be under half as much pressure. Even with the squad we had up until Jan, a decent manager would have not had us flirting with relegation... He's not up to this level of football and his record proves it.

12th at best....most likely is 15th.

Whatever anyone says in the thread about Pardew, the poll results for either 'Yes, lost faith' or 'Never had any' together still outnumber the believers...by a considerable margin. This despite another lemon being thrown into the mix by adding 'Never lost any;......

I was only able to see a good part of the second half due to a social committment, but I agree with the general gist of Tron's post - we hardly created any chances at all in the box and most of the goal efforts were from long range, Cabaye and Sissoko coming closest to scoring. Cisse looks a shadow of the player from last season and we are going to need a good striker with pace in the summer. We should have got something from the game, it looked a 0-0 all over for most of the second half but an amateurish piece of defending cost us the game and it was too close to the end to respond. Debuchy looked good going forward and is one of the best crossers in the side but he was left standing when their forward turned him to get the cross in for their winner...once again, Santon's defensive limitations were shown up in the general melee but the whole defence was at sea when they scored. That doesn't hide the fact that we should have been in front by then but no really clear chances created in their box. We have better players than them on paper - but I have a feeling we'll be saying this quite a bit over the rest of the season.....as for the Pardew debate, most people know what I think so there is no point in revisiting it. We have some class players and, as Tron says, some moderate ones but we are not looking like a side who will score many goals....

A complete waste of space and money - this type of player is a blight on any club, he should have been gone ages ago.

This season has more to do with those holding the purse strings than the man in the dugout imo They were to blame for the summer...they've opened the purse now, and its down to the manager & Co to produce results with the better players they have. If they don't....

Pure rubbish. We scored 4 goals yesterday yet we clearly don't work on our attacking play? Unfortunately after our poor first half of the season, where Pardew admittedly made mistakes, it seems some people have simply decided he can do virtually nothing to redeem himself. I reckon you ought to be asking the fans of W.Ham, Charlton and Southampton whether they think Pardew can 'redeem hinself'.... Their replies would be interesting - bet the Saints wouldn't want him back despite losing yesterday....

If they had our players playing in their style, they would have taken us to the cleaners yesterday. Time for some people to take off the Pardew B & W spectacles......

Agree with all of this - with players of the ability we have now, we should be playing faster mpre incisive football and retaining possession much better than we do. We will never realize this squad's potential unless this is improved on.

We needed this win and I'm pleased we managed it, but it wasn't as easy as the score-line looked. Elliot had a decent game in goal, not to blame for either goal - Tiote had his best game for ages and we needed that performance because they often went through us on the flanks...esp on Santon's side. Gouffran once again ran his heart out and Sissoko's goal was down to him, but Gouffran spent too much time covering for Santon and that undoubtedly took some steam out of him. Cabaye was class - hope he is OK, we need this player more than any other and it will be a miracle if we manage to hang on to him because he looks as if he could play at the very top. Why he hasn't been given Pens to take before now is a mystery to me because I just knew he would take a good one and so it proved. Def a pen too - blatant arm up to Debuchy's cross in the area. The OG really killed them off - had that not happened we could have been struggling to hang on to the lead. They are a good side and Pochettino has them well organized......if we had that sort of organization with our players...... Sissoko's non-stop running was a big asset and Cisse's goal brilliantly taken - much frustration evident in the way he hit that volley..! A bit of pressure off now - lets see how we handle Swansea...and Laudrup.

The lad had a good game and looked solid as well as able - his distribution was better than Krul's for most of the game, topped off by that fantastic throw out..! If he can keep up this standard he will be fine.

Its still a bit early to pass judgment on his handling of the new players - that will take a few more games - but we still look disjointed... a team of decent individuals rather than a decent team. They looked far more organized for much of the time and we conceded far too much of the midfield to them - we once again sat back and invited presure rather than pressing them - sitting back is OK if you have speed merchants up front who can use their pace on the break, but only Gouffran falls into that category - Cisse is not quick over a distance and Gouffran was having to cover too much ground protecting Santon's flank.Players are not making runs into space often enough when we gain possession whereas they always seemed to have a player available to take a pass. If this does not improve over the next few games, its Pardew's fault.

Definitely would give Haidara a few games there now - still not totally convinced about Santon. We could have paid big-time for his weaknesses today.

Could go either way - they will either be sloppy after the euphoria of the Cup win(what are those, by the way..?) or eager to put on a show for their fans...remember us playing Leicester in the last game of the promotion season at SJP when we won 7-1..? If its the latter, it will tell us much about Laudrup as a manager...not that we didn't already have an idea.. We have quality players, but we aren't a team - they are and they have a system that works. Difficult to predict....