Happy Face

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Couldn't find the numbers. Based it on Total shots * % shots inside the box. Edit: And most Ameobi shot's only count as half a shot.

The very best way.

If? Another imaginary counter argument. Let's keep it real http://i41.tinypic.com/2ptvziu.jpg So outside of the top 7 only West Ham, Swansea and Southampton have had more efforts within the box. An no, I'm not arguing that West Ham play pretty, attacking, cohesive, intricate football. Any more than I am us.

The person who first looked up that corner fact formed the view, looked at the stats, was proved correct and so it has been a widely circulated since. That's textbook. People watch games, perceive that we don't create chances...and say so on here. Without the fact checking part. If we had least shots on target, shots off target, shots in the box, shots outside of the box or something to confirm that, then it would be a useful statement. But other teams create EVEN less chances than us, before you even consider what proportion were "good" chances. What the facts do say is that we don't convert the chances we get as well as anyone else (bar QPR) this season. That we had one of the best conversion rates in the league last season. That it reduced early this season...and reduced further still when Ba left.

That would suggest you view the number of shots we've somehow contrived to spawn as an anomaly. It could be. It's higher than in the previous 2 seasons. It can all be contextualised. Someone raised the damning stat that only 4% of our shots came within the 6 yard box. Someone else that we've average 69 long balls per game. It's written into folklore that we've gone a year and a half without scoring from a corner. Seems to me people find a view and then are happy to hear facts that support their view...but will dismiss facts that challenge it. It's probably best to look for the reasons behind the facts rather than instantly dismiss them as anomalies....which they could well be.

Arsenal goal from a corner. "Woeful" says Happy Face. Shambolic defending from Wigan. Worse than against Swansea. Lord knows what Martinez would do with Simpson, Williamson, Taylor and Santon.

As I missed the last few pages i'll just say the best thing about stats is how angry they make people whose agenda is compromised by them. I dont use stats to defend Pardew. I use them as evidence where the criticism is factually false. You will not find me suggesting for one second that the football is has been good. I was criticising his footbsll when we came 5th. But people like to go over board, where Pardew is to blame for one thing he is to blame for all things...even imaginary criticisms with no basis in fact. Pages of this thread can be defined as # "OMG we don't create any chances" "In comparison to the rest of the league we actually create a good deal of chances but our conversion rate is poor" "OMG you're a wum the football is shit" Return to # Creating chances and the football being shit aren't mutually exclusive. I wasn't here much when Money ball was a hot topic. But if you think stats are irrelevant in the multi billion pound world of sport you are ignorant.

Aye, dodging question all over aren't I. There's a dozen of you and 2 of us expressing the counter argument. I don't think Pardew is capable of implementing any style other than keeping it tight. His set piece record is atrocious. But then we scored from as many set pieces as Arsenal last season. Should Wenger be sacked for his awful set pieces? We don't necessarily have to rely on them. Arsenal don't have to rely on set pieces because they're great at creating chances as a team, you picked the worst possible team to compare us to. We could do with something to rely on because we can't create chances and we concede loads of goals, but he's shit at coaching set pieces as well. Incidentally, what are his good points as a manager? That was the point of choosing Arsenal. We've scored more goals from open play than 10 other teams...despite THE PLAYERS having one of the worst conversion rates in the league for the chances we create. Arsenal are a more extreme example of a team who are "woeful" at set pieces, but compensate otherwise. I'm not really sure what your point is. We're bad at set pieces, we don't create many chances, we concede loads of goals. We have more shots on goal than any other club outside the top 7. We have more shots on target than any other club outside the top 7. Our conversion rate is the second worst in the league. Nearly half our shots were from outside the box, how does that compare to other PL sides? edit: wow, 55%, more than half We're on 50% Spurs are on 55% ....but we take more shots than the other teams. Look at the breakdown of shoits inside and outside the box in terms of numbers rather than percentages and we're by no means the worst. We've had 263 shots from inside the box this season. More than 7 per game. More than 8 other teams. All from our own box as we're pegged back according to some on here

Yeah, you can prove anything with facts can't you Stats account for very little. But when someone says "we create very little" and the facts show we create more chances than 13 other teams then the stats show that person is wrong.

Aye, dodging question all over aren't I. There's a dozen of you and 2 of us expressing the counter argument. I don't think Pardew is capable of implementing any style other than keeping it tight. His set piece record is atrocious. But then we scored from as many set pieces as Arsenal last season. Should Wenger be sacked for his awful set pieces? We don't necessarily have to rely on them. Arsenal don't have to rely on set pieces because they're great at creating chances as a team, you picked the worst possible team to compare us to. We could do with something to rely on because we can't create chances and we concede loads of goals, but he's shit at coaching set pieces as well. Incidentally, what are his good points as a manager? That was the point of choosing Arsenal. We've scored more goals from open play than 10 other teams...despite THE PLAYERS having one of the worst conversion rates in the league for the chances we create. Arsenal are a more extreme example of a team who are "woeful" at set pieces, but compensate otherwise. I'm not really sure what your point is. We're bad at set pieces, we don't create many chances, we concede loads of goals. We have more shots on goal than any other club outside the top 7. We have more shots on target than any other club outside the top 7. Our conversion rate is the second worst in the league.

Aye, dodging question all over aren't I. There's a dozen of you and 2 of us expressing the counter argument. I don't think Pardew is capable of implementing any style other than keeping it tight. His set piece record is atrocious. But then we scored from as many set pieces as Arsenal last season. Should Wenger be sacked for his awful set pieces? We don't necessarily have to rely on them. Arsenal don't have to rely on set pieces because they're great at creating chances as a team, you picked the worst possible team to compare us to. We could do with something to rely on because we can't create chances and we concede loads of goals, but he's shit at coaching set pieces as well. Incidentally, what are his good points as a manager? That was the point of choosing Arsenal. We've scored more goals from open play than 10 other teams...despite THE PLAYERS having one of the worst conversion rates in the league for the chances we create. Arsenal are a more extreme example of a team who are "woeful" at set pieces, but compensate otherwise.

Direct, thats about all I can say about it. i would say 'Boredom' go out there and bore the opposition to death, when they are finally half asleep hit them with the counter long ball. I can't see anything that jumps out as a particular style but its direct. Long ball, free kicks in our half launched into the oppo box. yeah i guess it can be easy for a lot of people to label us a long ball team, but then you get down to it and think it over, our long balls are far too horrifically poor , which leads to the conclusion the team and manager don't train solely for long balls. So you scatch your head and think we dont pass the ball short that much either, we dont try to keep the ball either,... what style is this? its f***ing relegation fodder style. no question. yeah its long ball, but its not even effective Allardyce style long ball Because it is panic, get it away from our goal as far as possible long ball. Exactly....and we've done much less of it since January by the way.

Your expectations jumped fromk 10th to 6th in a matter of minutes. Ashley better act fast or you'll bne demanding the title

Expectations seem high round these parts. With an effective transfer budget of zero, a chairman actually taking £30m OUT of the club over a couple of years, the lowest paid manager in the league, and a bench full of geriatrics/kids, what makes you think the chairman shares your ambition for getting anywhere and being a good side? expecting us not to be in a relegation fight is not high expectation. Spent 20m in Jan, and have one of the best first 11's outside of the top 6. Expectations are around top 10 for most. Why must Ashley constantly take all the flak? he's far from perfect but fucking hell he's bought us a pretty fucking decent team We can still finish in the top 10.

Aye, dodging question all over aren't I. There's a dozen of you and 2 of us expressing the counter argument. I don't think Pardew is capable of implementing any style other than keeping it tight. His set piece record is atrocious. But then we scored from as many set pieces as Arsenal last season. Should Wenger be sacked for his awful set pieces? We don't necessarily have to rely on them. Fair enough on your reply, cheers mate. Second thing, the point about Arsenal is pathetic, seeing as they score freely from open play, have a good movement and have been high in the league every year. Its a ridiculous comparison. We're no Arsenal. But we've scored more goals from open play than ten other teams. What's infuriating is we all know the limitations with set pieces, we can't get a whipped ball onto the head of one of our players to save out life. So we should work around the limitation and play set pieces short until we have the personnel to deliver on them.

Expectations seem high round these parts. With an effective transfer budget of zero, a chairman actually taking £30m OUT of the club over a couple of years, the lowest paid manager in the league, and a bench full of geriatrics/kids, what makes you think the chairman shares your ambition for getting anywhere and being a good side?

think hans might have covered this but let's assume you're correct - what has the manager done about it in 2.5 years then? his job isn't to just let shit happen...if you were right, and i don't think you are, he's paid to find a way to stop it happening He got 5 new players in January that are better than the ones they replaced. They will help with that, long term. Short term they are as likely to show inexperience or panic as those lesser players. I find it a bit worrying that the new players have mostly actually got worse since they got here. Lack of confidence rubbing off? In a perfect world they would all have been used as sparingly as Ben Arfa was upon arrival when he was chomping at the bit to play. Instead, Sissoko played 10 games in 30 days or something ridiculous. Fitness, and concentration needs to be taken up a notch if they're gonna cut it in the Premier league.

think hans might have covered this but let's assume you're correct - what has the manager done about it in 2.5 years then? his job isn't to just let shit happen...if you were right, and i don't think you are, he's paid to find a way to stop it happening He got 5 new players in January that are better than the ones they replaced. They will help with that, long term. Short term they are as likely to show inexperience or panic as those lesser players. doesn't explain the identical performances, indeed worse performances, prior to january Performances were solid and achieved 5th place when we had a remarkably injury free season. Before January we were filling gaps with Sammy Ameobi. Tavernier? Obertan? Ferguson? Bigirimana? They're not good enough.

Aye, dodging question all over aren't I. There's a dozen of you and 2 of us expressing the counter argument. I don't think Pardew is capable of implementing any style other than keeping it tight. His set piece record is atrocious. But then we scored from as many set pieces as Arsenal last season. Should Wenger be sacked for his awful set pieces? We don't necessarily have to rely on them.

think hans might have covered this but let's assume you're correct - what has the manager done about it in 2.5 years then? his job isn't to just let shit happen...if you were right, and i don't think you are, he's paid to find a way to stop it happening He got 5 new players in January that are better than the ones they replaced. They will help with that, long term. Short term they are as likely to show inexperience or panic as those lesser players.

Your're just repeating my question to you. Given how often we've looked better i the first half of games as opposed to the second half of games, my view is that they are following the game-plan early on. Whether due to goals scored or conceded, or the game getting on, or the opposition taking it up a notch. Our players struggle to maintain their shape and concentration for 90 minutes. This is more understandable with 3 or 4 new continental recruits on the pitch who are getting up to the pace of the English game, and a constantly changing starting 11 (when compared to last season) Can you expand on why you believe Pardew sees us playing reasonably good stuff, then insists we stop playing so well and start defending for outr lives? Settling for what he's got and hoping for more doesn't really cover it because he could do that from the first whistle, but the consensus seems to be, we don't.

Ad hominem. Doesn't engage any of my points. Just says I'm mad. There is evidence that Alan Pardew is capable of getting Newcastle united to finish in the top 5. There is evidence of awful injury issues hindering that this season, of our main goal threat being sold and not replaced adequately. There is evidence of improved results since he was given extra bodies to fill some of the gaps in January. What evidence is there that Mike Ashley can find a more accomplished manager? Ba wasn't replaced directly (what evidence is there of Ashley doing this btw?), but Pardew was given cover up front and LB and first teamers in defence and midfield. You can't have it both ways. Yes we missed out on Remy, but every other position was strengthened halfway through the season. We improved from losing almost every match, I don't see how that can be used as evidence of anything but the bare minimum given £20m of investment. The managers of the other teams we've been scrapping with could only dream of that level of improvement at that time. A manager needs to be more than simply the bloke that picks his most expensive players and sits on the sidelines waiting to see if they win. Much more. Redknapp got £20m+...and he got worse. But people are touting him for the job here.

I like to make evidence based deductions. I cannot produce evidence of that which has not happened before. So I can't say it's impossible he would appoint anyone better. If it happened I'd be delighted. There is however ample evidence of woeful managerial appointments in the past. The current one is an example, but he's been the most successful yet. The liklihood based on previous evidence is that whoever Mike Ashley appoints will be an incapable, cheap dinosaur, or someone that cannot work under him. It's now your turn in the debate to explain your reasons for supposing that trend can be bucked. Blind faith is not evidence.

What Change do you prefer to Shola? Williamson? Perch? Gosling? You have a problem with the tools here, not the workman.