Happy Face

This really. His inability to even look for a pass most the time really fucks me off. Prefers to run into trouble instead every time. His touch/pass ratio is the worst in the team, the only player to pass less than half the time he touched the ball yesterday.

In the first half he had the worst pass completion of all our attacking players. Which is mad for him. The mackems were closing our whole team down well, but Barfa especially was getting no space at all. He should have been well prepared for that and not trying to dance around them at that stage of the game, but he seemed to be refusing to pick a simple pass. As we got more of a grip he did much better.

It followed a season when we chased champions league, went hand in hand with an unbelievable injury crisis, 12 extra games in europe and a woeful summer of underinvestment. There are none of those excuses this time. The summer was bad for transfers, but we did much more business in January than we had the year before. I don't think he would survive another run like that.

I detected a little sarcasm Ikon

Liverpool had more shots on our goal than any team has in 2 years last week. We got a draw and plaudits for our battling performance with 10 men. Last season they had less than half as many shots and smashed us for 6. Funny old game, as Greavesie would say.

That's the best bit of the write up for me. The coaching budget at our club is criminal when the claimed aspiration is to turn young kids into top players.

Aye. .com have fucked up their time. Sky never actually showed the change though, so had us doubting ourselves. BBC report got it right.

Was he the longest serving outfield player to start yesterday? Think he knew what a derby was about more than anyone else...they should have known better after last season though.

Fucking Biffa!

You know the drill mate, give them all the credit and say they deserved to win. I tend to say nowt when we win and ridicule them for gloating when they do

I was looking at the .com report think "eh? Sammy never came on that early did he? We never made a double change either! Fuck it, he must have, and been really shit" Don't think we did that at all yesterday.

I reckon he still has his excuses. For all the talk of our squad full of internationals we still had Dummet and Williamson at CB. You're a man who professes to judge everything on facts, it seems. Was our group of available players more talented than theirs? Aye.

Oh aye, Sammy for Gouffran at the same time. Hardly changes to shore up defence either way.

Fucking hell, what a horrifying stat that is. Yay stats!!

If we get nowt from Chelsea and Spurs I still can't see us dropping into the bottom 3. Then we have Norwich, West Brom and Swansea. 2 of them at home. He should be looking at 7 points from those games. If he doesn't manage that, or very close to it, then it will come to a head imo. You can lose derbies, take 6 nowt trouncings and play shite football and survive if you're mid table. You can survive being in a relegation fight if everyone can see you're playing good football and just aren't getting the rub of the green. You can't play shite AND survive being in the bottom 3. Banning the media will have lost all good will too and there'll be even harsher write ups if it goes south. I think we will take 7 points from those games fwiw though

Thought we had our best chances at 1-1. Not that they were great chances like. Bringing on Cisse for sissiko..... shola for Gouffran... they don't seem very negative changes to me. Thought he wanted to win it from his changes. Mackems were relying on hoofball most of the second half. 10 men behind the ball, park the bus stuff. All the more reason we should have been making our dominance count while we had it like.

Obvious to anyone but Ashley. Kinnear's ability is also abundantly clear to everyone. But we've given that knacker a job twice.

I reckon he still has his excuses. For all the talk of our squad full of internationals we still had Dummet and Williamson at CB. We basically played with 5 at the back Tiote had to do so much work in front of them. Fair enough against the attacking prowess of Liverpool, against the lowly mackems though, should really be looking to attack more than baby sit the defence.

Wasn't good enough for a few on here like Really? Who would have said no? Only Ashley I reckon. Martinez is on a wage at Everton that dwarfs Pardew's here.

Been reading 30 odd pages and it's funny that this is said with a straight face

Of course the manager matters. That's not to say "anyone but Pardew" is necessarily a sensible view. The managerial cluster fuck of a merry-go-round in 08/09 saw us relegated.

Pardew deserves criticism for many things. Most of all, in my mind, his inability to get any sense of urgency in the players who were second best to the ball for long periods. Unforgivable in a derby. But your criticism of an early change seems misplaced. We were a goal down in 5 minutes and being shit on. If Pardew sat on his hands he would have been slated. Moreso. Rightfully so. He made some changes and as the half went on we grew into the game much more. Agree with you on the further changes like. Daft that we can't make like for like substitutions, but have to rejig the team with every change.

Aye but we have more than strikers that can get in the box Anyone who can score headers? Not sure our strikers can do that Gouffran, Cisse, Remy, and Ameobi are all fairly good headers of the ball. What we don't have is players who are dominant aerially and can make use of the rubbish floated balls we put into the box constantly. What??????????????????? Ameobi wins about one ball in the air in every 50 or so fired up to him. His aerial ability is on a par with Pardew's managerial ability. Shola wins more aerial duels per game than any other player in our squad.

I did have a good day cheers. One of the lads went home on the final whistle with a face like a smacked arse. Said he was going to bed. What a fanny. But those of us who stayed out had a good afternoon/night.

What a popular thread this is