Lotus

Tbf Wullie, the body language of the players on Monday night after we drew level was that they thought they were going to go on and win the game. You could sense their hunger for that (imo). It's just that we actually don't really carry any attacking threat and we're easy to catch on the break, so we lost (not helped by crucial mistakes from Simpson, Tiote and Coloccini).

Many of them clearly aren't playing for him - that much is obvious. Is it? Which players? It's probably easy to confuse 'not playing for the manager' with 'under-performing'. Plenty are doing the latter. Other than that it's speculation. I'm not sure it's that easy to confuse. I don't think there's been too much evidence of a lack of application, but there are obviously a fair few underperforming. I think when you get 6 or 7 of your top players seriously underperforming at the same time it can make people wonder. Fwiw, i don't get the impression he's lost the dressing room. Still, when you have that many players well below par it gets easy to jump to conclusions.

Many of them clearly aren't playing for him - that much is obvious. Is it? Which players? It's probably easy to confuse 'not playing for the manager' with 'under-performing'. Plenty are doing the latter. Other than that it's speculation.

Pardew is a manger that likes 'characters' though so expect to see plenty more of him this season. Should have been subbed off for Marveaux after 45 mins.

He really tried, he deserves credit for that. Shame about his crossing but he never once hid, always offered himself as an outlet down the right. Made a mistake which lead to a goal which was a shame. My chief memory of him last night though was putting about 10 crosses in.

The truth though is that he's used to an early ball rather than someone dallying about wondering what to do before releasing it

Another thing that struck me last night was that Fulham had a couple of moves that they repeated nearly all game whereby they could get the ball from their own half upto and around our box in a couple of passes. Just a few key offensive strategies that they'd clearly worked on that they could use to turn us around and relieve the pressure and also see if they could create a problem or two for us (which they managed tbh). Now, you all know what i'm going to say next....... It was brutally apparent that when we moved forward it wasn't in a well rehearsed manner. I understand the ideaology of not over coaching good, natural attacking players because their instincts will probably get the results you need anyway and you may just stifle them (i truly think this is Pardew's thoughts on it, remember what he said about HBA 'i leave the attacking stuff up to him, it's when we don't have the ball i want him to do it my way'. However, it's clear Pardew's 'hands off' approach to attacking has been taken too far because we really do look disjointed and somewhat incoherent. We lack any real flow or rhythm to the way we go forward. When our players are under a bit of pressure they need to look around for a team mate instead of just knowing where one is. When we attack they all look like they'v only just met ALL THE TIME. He's got to address this or he's going to lose his job.

To be fair to Simpson, even the good ones he put in led to nothing due to our abysmal movement. It's a bit more than that imo. We never hit a cross at full sprint. We never cross the ball, either in the air or along the deck (between the goalie and the penalty spot) with our players moving forward at pace. If we did we'd have the oppo defenders facing their goal, trying to track our runs and we'd be creating some indecsion in their backline. That's exactly the situation in which players like Cisse will thrive. Instead we stop or slow down, our forwards have to check and their defenders get to turn and face us and then just pick our crosses off.

not even sure he does considering the way he's going on with Jonas/Marveaux situation. It's clear to everyone (except Pardew apparently) that he's been f***ing abysmal all season. Our defensive weakness is why Jonas is getting the nod, Marv is a talent but a light weight who looks scared he will shatter under a tackle. Jonas may be lacking in the attacking sense but work ethic and tracking back is still 100%. Last thing we need is to weaken our 3 man midfield with Marv, especially away from home. Think this is the only reason he starts. Pardew's first judgement on a player is what can that player do for the team when we don't have the ball. It is an important element, especially for us as we don't often have the lion's share of the possession. The crux of our problem is that Pardew still uses the same criteria when chasing a game. That habit will be his undoing imo.

We had the ball in midfield more, that was good, but we rarely penetrated and our crossing was poor. Conversely, they got through us quite a few times and were a little unlucky not to score more. If the game would've been a draw, Pardew would have been delighted and Jol would've been disappointed. Our substitutions actually had a touch of ther Souness about them. I understand Pardew a bit more now.

Thought Abeid looked alright yesterday. Not sure about Ferguson or Tavernier tbh. Neither of them seem to have a standout attribute so i wonder if they'll ever be in genuine first team contention. If you imagine they played for another team, would what you've seen of them make you want us to put a bid in for them? Would be good squad players though, if they'd be satisfied with that. Anyway, i am jumping the gun there. Sammy does have standout physical attributes and very good ball control, which is suprising given his height. Obviously needs to learn how to play the game at the top level and that might take a couple of years for him to develop.

I think Marveaux need players about who he can pass the ball to for him to lool effective. Given he had Shola as a point of attack, Sammy and Ranger, none of them making clever runs i wasn't surprised he looked somewhat bereft.

Will play as a wide forward, surely?

Simpson Willo the Wisp Colo Santon Tiote Perch Anita HBA Marv Ba

With that squad i reckon they'll mainly training for the Fulham game. I'd be surprised if many of the main players are used tomorrow.

Absolutely, this was a massive part of our game in the second half. Was good to see. Wigan didn't press the midfield at all really so Anita had so much time. Would want to see that work against Fulham before i get my hopes up.

This exactly Peter Beardsley complimented Andy Cole these two occupy the same space/role etc except Ba is a much better footballer ... we need a creative striker with a bit of guile and alternate Ba and Cisse (who personally I would sell) with the newbie... Cisse has no craft guile or workrate so when he doesn't score he doesn't contribute a la Michael Owen Says Alex 'Poz' Gontran...

'He says he'd like a burger, large fries and a fanta'

I think the same.

Who would you play?

Excellent attitude. No longer sure what attributes he offers for what we want/need. Attitude goes a long way with managers though.

All work and no play makes Jack Flash a 4-2-3-1. I've said yesterday keeping it on the floor and not in the air is the biggest change. It's less tempting to go long when you only have one central striker with his back to goal.

Can't disagree with that he has looked very smart about the pitch. Italian teams are hovering so it remains to be seen if he will remain a Newcastle player or be lured back home. A big fat wedge and Mike would sell goes without saying Nice smileys round here ... first post and hope to stick around Mmmmm.......

He had lots of time and space last night and he used it well. Would love to see him, Cabaye and HBA in the same team (us not france...).

Hard to judge him after that. Had they kept 11 on the pitch it would have been easier to assess the comparitive approaches to the game between him and Pardew. As it was, i thought Wigan had better passing and movement but they were really quite poor without the ball.