Chris_R

You're too kind. I want to see him homeless and unemployed in Raqqa.

Halves?! 3 thirds, Shirley? I also want to hear the commentator say "the ref has blown the third-time whistle".

Be absolutely amazing to see him back at SJP if he stays in post and West Brom fail to pick up. Maybe that's what the owners of West Brom are hoping for, that Pardew fears coming here more than he wants his compensation.

This is a very valid point. I think they'll leave it as late as possible, as you never know what will happen, but I can really see that if they're looking likely to go down they'd do it this year rather than next. Right before the cut-off date.

Much though I hate Ashley and love seeing anti-Ashley sentiment aired at the ground, both verbally and visually, if he wants to stop banners being flown at his club taking the piss out of him and his tenure, no matter how true and accurate those banners are, it's kind of hard to not think "yeah, that's fair enough".

Pardew got a forward 3 working excellently and that's most of the reason we finished 5th. Of course it was enjoyable, but we all knew we were winning games we weren't best in. Maybe that made it more enjoyable, getting the rub of the green for once, but if we'd finished 8-10th it would have been a better reflection of our performances. Still a decent season, of course. That said, Pardew's ripping-up of that forward 3 because Ba didn't want to play out wide was tantamount to professional suicide and gross incompetence. And he never managed to get another working formation going either, presumably because getting that first one right was nothing but pure good luck.

It isn't. I posted something about that on here last year. My cousin who worked in the Commercial department at SAFC at the time told me that. The genius of it is you don't even need to then get those people through the turnstiles. The very act of handing out the tickets, even if they go straight in the bin, means you just add them on to the attendance. I think this year they're probably doing just that - Not giving them out to punters so they don't lose revenue, but at the same time leaving a pile of 9,000 of them in a box somewhere that is accessible but nobody will ever find, and then claiming that as those tickets are potentially in circulation then they can just whack that number onto their "crowd" for the day. Surely with the current state of their finances they would be looking to reduce the official attendance figures They would pay less tax on a 20,000 crowd than 25,000 due to the reduced turnover Can you explain how much tax they'd pay on a ticket they'd given out for free?

It isn't. I posted something about that on here last year. My cousin who worked in the Commercial department at SAFC at the time told me that. The genius of it is you don't even need to then get those people through the turnstiles. The very act of handing out the tickets, even if they go straight in the bin, means you just add them on to the attendance. I think this year they're probably doing just that - Not giving them out to punters so they don't lose revenue, but at the same time leaving a pile of 9,000 of them in a box somewhere that is accessible but nobody will ever find, and then claiming that as those tickets are potentially in circulation then they can just whack that number onto their "crowd" for the day.

Doubtless West Brom have just chucked the taxi driver £5k or whatever to drop the charges, everyone's a winner that way. Keeps the players out of the press/jail, and the taxi driver gets a nice windfall.

Learn from his mistakes? :lol: This is a man who never makes mistakes. How can he learn from them? How can he learn from the grass being too long, or the Notting Hill Carnival, or the crowd being too excited? Literally everything that ever goes wrong under his tenure is due to something entirely outside of his control. I admire their optimism, though!

Yes, I thought he was excellent yesterday, bossed the midfield. He showed everything - Passing, tackling, work rate, calmness, decision-making. Everything you'd ever want from a midfielder. If he could play like that every week (I know, he won't), he'd be a certainty for the England squad.

Wish they'd would stop calling him Karlo Darlow.

So the same as if Joselu were there, then?

Why the fuck would anyone let a man who cannot kick a football take a penalty? I'd seriously rather have seen Dummett step up. So fucking clear that it was going to be a shit effort.

Got sent off the plane

Really? He's been completely frozen out and you don't think that's his fault? Well, this report of him doing the bare minimum is after being frozen out, not before. If I were told by my employer that they didn't want me and that I had to go work in a separate office because they didn't think I had anything useful to contribute, then maybe I'd do the bare minimum too. Maybe I'd work my socks off and try to prove them wrong, I don't know. But again, it's kinda hard to blame him for saying "stuff this" and just dialling it in every day if he's been told he's not wanted or welcome.

To be honest, I struggle to blame him at all. If I were told I could earn £70k doing nothing or £25k playing football every week, I know which I'd do. Anyone claiming otherwise is quite frankly a liar. And I'd quite happily explain that to my kids too. The whole family benefits from this ultimately. None of that changes him being an utter waste of space who should never be allowed anywhere near the pitch ever again though. But the contract isn't his fault and I don't blame him for making us honour it.

Harsh on sand. Sand has many very real and genuine uses

They just as a likely point to Ashley being a cheap b****** and doing just above the bare minimum to stay up. Plus the £100m or whatever tv money kicking in next season means we can buy outright in the summer. Yeah, because prices won't go up one bit once that happens....

What a time to be alive.

I've not stopped watching, but I've stopped financially contributing (ie Sky, matchday tickets, merchandise) and I've stopped allowing anything negative to adversely affect my life. I'll always care on some level, you're born with that and it can't ever truly go, not for me, but I'm done letting these charlatans constantly ruin my weekend / January / Summer and I refuse to put money in their pockets for the privilege of having them do it.

No players and selling a Merino would be the final straw for me - more significantly, I expect it would be for Rafa too. After over a decade of this, how can anyone still require a "final straw"? What next, the final final straw? The very last straw? The absolute very last chance?

Quite the reverse - It'll give them loads of confidence because they know there's no chance they'll ever be replaced. Well, I say confidence. Maybe I mean complacency.

If we sign nobody else of note, Rafa should walk. If actually think less if him if he stayed. Leave that fat slug to deal with the problem he's created, consign us to relegation and cost him a ton of cash. It'd serve him right of that's what happens.

"Spend whatever it takes... provided it's less than this pile of buttons"