Lotus

He did have better players around him, for sure. He never really brought the ball forward though iirc. When Madrid sold him they said they wouldn't miss him: “We will not miss Makelele. His technique is average, he lacks the speed and skill to take the ball past opponents, and ninety percent of his distribution either goes backwards or sideways. He wasn’t a header of the ball and he rarely passed the ball more than three metres.” They missed him a lot though! I don't think Tiote has Makelele's positional intelligence and calmness but, there is a role for that type of player. It's just that when you have that type of player it's meant to give license to your other players to attack but Pardew doesn't have the stones to allow that.

I'm not joining in on this but out of curiousity, did you rate Makelele?

Actually, i was rather slow to call Tiote out for being rubbish last season. In the end i couldn't avoid it, he was woeful. Soooooooo much better this season though. We look worse without him. I also said i didn't really see what qualities Anita had to force himself into the team (last season). He's looked very good in a 3 man midfield though this season (as long as Tiote is playing). We all make wrong judgements about players. No biggie.

He has to be one of the best paid players at the club. We can't afford to have that kind of outlay on a bit part player. We need to find a replacement that Pardew likes.

Norwich handed us both goals in our win. Cardiff we had a deflection for the first goal, and against Stoke we were woeful until they started losing players through players getting sent off for no good reason. if we do it it's not because we were unlucky, it's because we f***ed up. luck is when an outside agency affects the game in a cackhanded mannner. like I say today wasn't bad luck, that decision would never have gone against man city. Well I thought we were talking about luck. The incidents I mentioned were about luck, whereas the Tiote goal being chalked off was anything but. the incidents you talked about weren't luck then. they were poor play from the oppo. (I'll include cardiff as we had been the better team) How often will teams hand you points through incredible defensive gaffes? Enough to ensure a mid table position I suppose. If you want to finish higher then you need to make your own luck. everey week. don't you watch games ? Yes I do. What's your point? the point is it happens every week. we haven't got where we are, or where we ended last season through other teams defensive gaffes etc, should we look at every other team and examine if they are quality "can't stop them" type goals against defensive gaffes ? maybe give extra goals for non defensive gaffes, have a defensive gaffe panel to sort things out ? Well where are we exactly? Out of the cups and lost 4 consecutive games. Maybe it's just bad luck. would you say it's bad luck ? We were extremely lucky against Stoke. Ref had an absolute homer.

I think Ashley's biggest problem looks like he's a poor judge of character. He doesn't know what's needed to make a successful footballing club, fair enough. He doesn't have the knowledge of who to appoint to run things, fair enough. He doesn't have the judgement to know who's a chancer and a prick and who's maybe got something about them. That's a flaw.

Wish we would tbh!

Were we even interested? Why wouldn't we be?

Eh, did you not see the stick Debuchy got for the sending off, or the stick Shola got for the Southampton and other games. Trying to change the truth wont make Pardew any better, you are deluded by your insistance that Pardew isn't crap. Or the posts commenting on Cabaye, especially Tiote's, bad to awful performances.

He's very attached to the idea of 2 banks of 4. If you haven't got the players to do it, it can be quite frustrating to watch.

Very, very silly. Could have gone in with just one foot and won the ball.

Gouffran looked absolutely shagged. Still looked better than Shola and Remy.

He shouldn't play in the centre right now unless we are missing one of Cabaye, Tiote or Anita. I think him, Tiote and Cabaye is a nice balance of attributes. Let Moussa make the runs and Cabaye make the passes. Cheick covers and gets rid of it quickly!

Very good close control. Passing is not his strong point. Would use his engine and power in the centre.

We went about it wrong today unfortunately. We were pretty toothless in 'attack' - if you can call it that. As the 1st half went on i did think we'd end up losing so only losing 0-1 with 10 men isn't so bad. Could have been worse. Unless Gouf was injured i didn't understand bringing him off. Shola was a non event and Remy wasn't at the races at all. Not sure what the paranoia is about playing HBA on the right, it's not like Santon is a better defender than Debuchey or something. Alex Ferguson, who knows a thing or 2 said 'play your best players in their best positions'. Good advice tbf.

Might have something about it. Least we'd crowd out the middle.

Comparing Mourinho to Pardew :lol:

You can never be confident in him when he's defending a 1 vs 1.

He did better than Santon imo.

Ref had a total homer. Well, you win some you lose some. Yesterday the ref was all ours. Tough titty

I was a bit undecided on him until the cup final. The way Wigan came out, so completely fearless and determined to use the ball like that. Totally tipped it for me, i gave in then and thought he's clearly class! Hope he takes Everton above Liverpool in the log run.

I thought the lineup was good. No idea why we were rubbish for so much of the 1st half but there you go, we were. We might well have turned it around without the sending offs but, for me, this way is better. Players won't be tired, they'll be fresh and confident for Arsenal.

We were pretty flat for most of the 1st half. First 5 mins or so we looked ok then we just disappeared. I can't honestly say that was the manager or just the players being a bit off the boil due to it being xmas. Fact is though that Stoke were in the ascendency until they got stupid. We'll never know if we'd have picked up in the 2nd half, as it was, they made it easy. The ref also had a massive homer. No one in our team or management staff can have any pride in the 1st half performance. After the 2 reds (second one deserved) we were always going to win and we did. Best bit of passing of the game was actually Stoke's 5 or so passes that led to Willo's handball. As i hate Hughes i'm overall delighted

Giroud's not good enough for Arsenal.