Lotus

Haven't seen him play LW but i'll take your word that he would be good at it...

What would the 4-4-2 look like without Jonas? Cisse Remy Gouff Anita Cab HBA Santon Colo Mym Deb Attack Attack Attack From Pards point of 4-4-2 though.... Gouff Remy Sissoko Tiote Cabaye HBA Santon Colo Willo Debuchy So, no LW then.

2 v City wasn't it? And the first v Fulham. Doesn't bode too well does it! Man City have some big lads and Fulham have Hangeland & Berbatov (if he counts..) and Cardiff still scored. Really don't think we can let Tiote play coz of the FKs he'll give away.

What would the 4-4-2 look like without Jonas?

They'll be tired at the weekend though. You just watch. It is a tired line of talk. We won our group in this thing last season, quite easily in fact. Move back the Wayne Routledge revisionist history talk. He wasn'r much good for us but another manager has clearly had him performing for a while. We 'upgraded' him for Obertan though. Not so clever

This lot have a scored a few from set pieces non?

Ashley is businessman, if he thinks Pardew is going to fail again this season and cost him money and from the start we've made it's actually looking like a possibility, he will sack him. However he's not going to make a knee jerk reaction so early in the season when he's been our manager for 3 years and you have the feeling he likes to have the stability at the club and doesn't really want to be chopping and changing managers when things get tough. He's given Pardew another chance after last season's disaster but make no mistake about it, if he fails again, he will be gone. Why did you say 'fail again'? When did he fail the first time? We stayed up didn't we? He still failed his targets though, unless you’re of the opinion Ashley would take 17th every single year if offered and be happy with that. Tbh, i don't know his targets anymore than you do. It's obvious Ashley has no real sporting ambition though so we have to assume that staying in the league is good enough (i'm sure he doesn't want relegation dog fights every year because we'll end up losing one again but he's not motivated to spend the necessary to make us regular top 8).

Don't think you can damn Pardew on transfers. He doesn't appear to have much say in them.

Ashley is businessman, if he thinks Pardew is going to fail again this season and cost him money and from the start we've made it's actually looking like a possibility, he will sack him. However he's not going to make a knee jerk reaction so early in the season when he's been our manager for 3 years and you have the feeling he likes to have the stability at the club and doesn't really want to be chopping and changing managers when things get tough. He's given Pardew another chance after last season's disaster but make no mistake about it, if he fails again, he will be gone. Why did you say 'fail again'? When did he fail the first time? We stayed up didn't we?

I would actually be amazed in HBA was benched for Cardiff.

Aye, got to be good to do that.

was he not "hauled" off at half time? And? Pardew thought he was giving Coleman/Mirralas a free ride down the right so switched things around. Cardiff don't possess the same sort of ability that Everton do down the flanks, he’s not getting dropped, it was a tactical change at half time which worked but to suggest because he didn’t think Ben Arfa was right for that game means he won’t be right for Cardiff is just naïve. Was he right for Hull?

Fits in every way except the last point.

I do wish he'd look for a pass more often rather than (seemingly) always trying to take a player(s) on. Would make him more difficult to crowd out of a game.

Think as Ron said, if we sit deep and stay compact you would hope they would struggle to break us down and providing Remy's fit, we do have the speed for an effective counter attack. I think they'll be very conscious of the fact that they won't have too many wins this season and will see us as a real chance of getting 3 points. I'd rather that than them sitting deep and watch us ponce about without any penetration.

I never really know with this lad but, i can't imagine him having a great game against Frazier Campbell, who, for all his sh*teness, is really quite fast!

I don't buy into that. I would imagine big Mike would have more than covered himself, if not I`m sure his lawyers would have insisted on it. No, my reasoning as to why he`s still here is on the lines of: - Partridge would be the classic "turkey voting for Xmas" if he walked. - Ashley`s reputation / ego would undoubtedly take a big hit were his judgment seen to be so poor (Though I`m not sure how much of a f*** he gives about that mind.) It's possible he just decided to give Pardew more time, earned by finishing 5th. Or possibly he doesn't have any viable (by his consideration) alternatives right now. Yep, possible as well. And, tbf, i'm struggling to think of anyone who's unemployed right now, would work with JFK as his boss, take a low (relatively) wage and would be a absolute banker to turn us around. Rather restrictive set of criteria.

Tbf there's a few about who believe our 2nd half performance was down to Pardew's half time team talk and outstanding tactical switches. And this included taking HBA off and nothing to do with Everton just massively switching off. If it was all about us and not about Everton then we were simply better with HBA off the pitch. Simples.

I don't buy into that. I would imagine big Mike would have more than covered himself, if not I`m sure his lawyers would have insisted on it. No, my reasoning as to why he`s still here is on the lines of: - Partridge would be the classic "turkey voting for Xmas" if he walked. - Ashley`s reputation / ego would undoubtedly take a big hit were his judgment seen to be so poor (Though I`m not sure how much of a f*** he gives about that mind.) It's possible he just decided to give Pardew more time, earned by finishing 5th. Or possibly he doesn't have any viable (by his consideration) alternatives right now.

Ashley doesn't know what a decent standard is.....that's why your mate is in the job in the first place. Exactly, and that's why Kinnear is pretty much 99 percent our next manager. Easy option and cheap. He isn't and won't be. Howay then, what fancy names have you for our next manager then? No fancy names at all (what do you mean by fancy? Jesse Blossomfanny is a fancy name, but not sure if they are a manager.) Kinnear has had 2 heart attacks in his last two managerial roles. Common sense would tell you he is incapable of managing again, he won't be as lucky a third time. No one would dare risk it, and I don't even think Kinnear would risk it. A bit of common sense is all it takes to work that out. What if he brings in Mick Harford? That is the big worry. Not as much Kinnear taking over, but who Kinnear would want to put in charge. Does make you wonder why he wanted him as an assistant in the summer. Given that his own job amounted to f*** all itself Wasn't there something about that JFK couldn't drive so wanted someone to cart him about? Offered his mate the job, etc.....

I don't like all this 'MYM is a coward' crap. He's made some bad decisions no doubt but they were highlighting Vidic the other week as he ran away from the player with the ball who was closing in on goal. Wouldn't call Vidic a coward, was just a bad decision. MYM made a couple of them as well. Hopefully he'll improve.

Worse than that, he's prone to making consecutive catastrophic decisions. That's where the REAL f*ck ups have come from. Managing to do them on the bounce!!!

Ashley doesn't know what a decent standard is.....that's why your mate is in the job in the first place. Exactly, and that's why Kinnear is pretty much 99 percent our next manager. Easy option and cheap. Not disagreeing with you but following your logic of argument, why didn't Kinnear take over the managers role in the Summer?

the thing is, by the logic of your own point in the same post there's nothing in his history to suggest getting the players he wants is any help to him either Well, for NUFC we've got Obertan and Ba. That's a hit and a miss.