Ronaldo

13 in 14, I think.

It's quite possible to keep players behind the ball and still keep the ball on the deck. The good counter-attacking teams do it very well. I don't disagree and I've been advocating a counter-attacking setup for months. Not easy to achieve with Cabaye's absence, Jonas being totally finished and the problems up front.

The Fullham game reminded me of just how poor we can look defensively when our midfield is in front of the ball instead of behind it. I can undestand if not condone why Pardew looks for it to be hit long more times than not.

He's probably up against Ba, Cisse and Ameobi.

As a fan I'm convinced that Ba would be happy playing left of centre as long as he was getting goals and hogging the limelight. He loves being the star player and loves getting goals and I don't have a problem with that because most forwards are the same in that respect. Goals bring him confidence and I don’t think for one minute that it would bother him where he was getting them from, as long as he was getting them, something which didn't happen last season after he was moved. As for what I would do in Pardew’s position, I wouldn’t let a player dictate to me where he did or didn’t play, if that is what’s happening. I’ve managed people for many years and don’t let people tell me what they are or aren’t going to do because if one person can do it then they all can. If you give one person preferential treatment is usually pisses off others and affects the performance of others. Is Cisse p*ssed off because he’s been moved away from a position which he made a success of last season? My guess is that he probably is and it’s preventing him from performing to the best of his ability. Keeping one player happy looks to be causing another player to underperform, the other player is just as good at doing his job as Ba is but he doesn’t moan about it. So in that case keeping Ba happy is being cancelled out by pissing off Cisse. Once again failing to explicitly say what you'd actually do with the team in Pardew's situation if Ba had made such threats. I'm out.

You know what that type of manager would do, he'd attack and get the most out of his assets. Which Pardew did last season, by the way.

You failed to mention how you'd react as a fan to the hypothetical scenario I presented you with. Nor have you said what you'd do in Pardew's position should our worst fears about Ba's self-preserving stipulations be a reality - which they are in all likelyhood.

Neither were particularly effective that season, although Jonas started well enough.

Useless for us more often than not, though.

What's Pardew's net spend since taking over a recently promoted club sitting 12th in the league? His tactics may be dreadful, but they don't tell half the story.

Pardew is the manager, how can anybody else be to blame for Pardew (the manager) picking Ba in a formation that doesn't suit us as a team? I understand that we don't know what is said between the manager and player and don't really need to as we can judge the situation on what we actually see. I can understand why he wants to keep Ba happy but not at the expense of the team and that is what is actually happening. Either Ba doesn't want to play left of a front 3 or Pardew doesn't want him to. Only 1 person picks the team and only 1 person is to blame for it unless Pardew is being told what to do by somebody above him which we have no proof of so I'll stick to what we do know. We don't know a thing about what the managers are told and haven't since the club was bought by that dreadful b******. What we do know is what's happened in the past. Big players - our most important player, even - have been sold with Championship crap like Ameobi and Lovenkrands expected to fill the void like folded-up dirty napkins under a table leg. You can understand the manager wanting to try to do everything he possibly can to keep the likes of Ba happy on a personal level, especially when the striking options beyond the starting Xl are laughably even more limited after a 5th place finish than when we'd just been promoted. Let's say Ba is refusing to play out wide, Pardew puts him out there and he demands to be sold in Jan. January comes and he leaves the club, leaving us with an out of form Cisse as the only proven goalscorer in the entire sodding squad. We'd sink like a stone and you'd be there demanding Pardew gets sacked with every predictable, non-scoring defeat. Pardew's made mistakes this season and personally I'm not at all sure he's cable of rectifying them in the long-term, but one thing is for sure: he just can't win with people like you. Disguise it all you want, but you're comfortable pointing all the blame in his direction when it's blatantly obvious he's only a symptom of a bigger problem, struggling against his master to make something out of nothing, much like Hughton was.

You know fine well I agree with basically all apart from the last line. You simply can't apportion all blame to Pardew - especially when you don't know what's been communicated between the pair of them.

Duff can actually strike a football, to be fair to him.

His head's never been 'right'. My lasting memory of that lad will be his pretending to be injured after that WBA goal in Hughton's last game. Shame, really, because there are plenty of good memories of his wand-like right foot.

Exactly this. Amazing the number of people who don't seem to grasp this particular argument. Ba is not the person who picks the team, amazing the number of people who don't seem to grasp this particular argument. It's partially Pardew's fault, more than likely partially Ba's fauly but mostly the owner's fault. I want Ba on the left and want Pardew to do it, but I can't help but feel the man's between a rock and a hard place and can understand him trying to placate Demba: the last time we were this reliant on a striker he was sold in the January window without any replacement.

Massive agenda against the guy. He's a poacher. Poachers don't score without chances being created and we create the square root of fuck all.

I hope we play as negative as possible. Maybe we'll beat them 1-0.

He's awesome as a wide forward on the right. No need to piss about with it.

Folk still falling for it?

Yep. Very slight.

Should've been benched or moved on the moment we got promoted as with Williamson and Simpson. All benefiting hugely from the lack of ambition with that useless oaf Ameobi.

Ba's not a 10/10 player centrally in any universe. Wouldn't say he's a 7 out wide either. And a 2 for Cisse? He's wasted out wide but looks productive compared to some of the crap we've had out there. Lovenkrands etc.

Aye, ludicrous.

Not sure if sarcasm... What I'm trying to say is that he didn't hide. He clearly knew he made a hash of a couple of situations, but he put in the effort to try to rectify them. Which is the least I'd expect from such a brilliant footballer, and club captain no less. Not sarcasm at all. He was everywhere last night.

Or not.