oldtype

Travel, we played at home as often as we played away and two of the away trips resulted in flights of 2 hours or less. The disruption to training should be minimal if he re-schedules days off. Before Pardew arrived we played in Europe and didn't use it as an excuse, we managed the situations instead of looking to use it as a way of deflecting the attention away from poor performance. We’ve rarely had a massive squad of quality and we’ve had seasons with as many games as this in the past without looking for excuses. We’ve been hearing since September or October that the players are tired and it’s more of the same bullshit. Nail on the head To be fair, pretty much the exact thing happened the last time we were in Europe. Injury crises, shit form, lethargic performances. I remember losing to Sheff Utd 1-0 at St James Park to a Danny Weber() goal two days after we played in Turkey or something.

They'll probably switch back to even in a few years just to piss us off.

The sheer level of bitterness on the forum these days

Currently five points. Points are only a reflection of form and to move into the top half our form has to be significantly better than the teams above us to make up five points - and there's no signs that is going to happen anytime soon. We're three points behind 10th place Swansea. And if you look at the league, if only we had won the other easier home games...... Consecutive batterings by Man U and Arsenal should fix this.

We should be playing with a front three of Obertan, Ba, and Marveaux at least until Ben Arfa is back.

Hmm, Anzhi actually isn't much farther from me than it is from you There also seems to be a suprisingly cheap flight to Kharkiv available, although it's run by some sketchy Russian airliner so I should probably fear for my life.

I expect he'll leave in January. Very hard to think anything else at this point

Errr, well, not the summer we got Cabaye and Ba. I would agree the other though. There were still position that hadn't been filled but needed to be. It happens with all clubs though really but I completely understand where Oldtype is coming from. A lot of people were massively pissed off with the Cabaye and Ba window, including myself to a degree. We didn't think Ba would be consistent/injury-free enough to be our main striker and were angry that Barton was sold for free late in the window and not replaced.

The only certainty about the coming window is that it will be disappointing. In a decade of supporting football clubs home and abroad, I don't think I've ever walked away from a window thinking "alright, job done"

I'd take rich Arab owners any day of the week. Fuck principles. Barring a global financial collapse of massive proportions, it's the only way we'll ever win the league.

Would Hughton have had Newcastle United finishing fifth last season? Both hypotheticals are impossible to prove.

Keegan had us playing our best football since SBR. If you exclude him your statement is true, but that's mostly because everyone else we had since then was absolutely f***ing terrible. The football under Hughton was pretty unremarkable. He was sacked before he had the chance to lock into a system that worked for our personnel in the Premiership. 6-0 against Villa and 5-1 against the mackems, aye proper unremarkable that. Those were fantastic results but Hughton didn't have us playing good football consistently in the Premiership. Pardew has his share of remarkable individual results as well. I don't know, things were clicking for us on an attacking front in the months prior to Hughton's departure. While our results were patchy we came forward as an attacking unit, used the wings well and posed a threat through the center of the midfield. Hopefully today's attacking performance is something we can replicate and make the base minimum. It was certainly light years ahead of the majority of performances this season. My memory isn't perfect but I don't really agree. I specifically remember the midfield being the weakest part of our team during that season. Nolan provided a goal threat but he was unfit and terrible in possession which lead to us often getting overrun in the middle of the pitch. Compounding the problem was that he was terrible every time we tried to play him right behind the front man. We also had very little wide threat due to Routledge being out of form and Jonas not being an orthodox winger. Obviously it was miles better than anything this season. Almost anything would be miles better than anything this season.

I try to be measured about my criticism, but the set pieces under Pardew are so bad they almost constitute a sackable offense by themselves.

I think we actually hit it to Colo at the back post once today. Perhaps I'm mistaken.

Obviously if you selectively remember only the good parts of Hughton's reign and compare them with the absolute low point of Pardew you'd come to that conclusion. What were the low points of Hughton's reign then? Getting beat 3-1 away at WBA iirc. Oh no! Everything he did as caretaker, consecutive home losses to Blackpool and Stoke, 1-5 away at Bolton on a run of five matches without a win culminating in his sacking. I'd go on and list the good parts of Pardew's tenure, but it's not as if you don't remember them. You'd rather just ignore them on your quest to be needlessly condescending. None of those are anything other than I expected from a newly promoted team. You obviously had higher expectations, which makes it so odd that you're backing the current manager. Why does he deserve to keep his job and Hughton didn't? I didn't make either of those claims (a. Pardew deserves to keep his job, b. Hughton didn't), I said that I don't see sufficient evidence to determine whether one is a better manager than the other. I'd have thought Hughton being miles ahead in the same division with much poorer players was plenty evidence. It should have been obvious to you from watching their respective Newcastle sides play anyway imo. I'd have to say no, Norwich being five points ahead of us halfway into the season doesn't really offer me conclusive evidence that Hughton is a better manager. Having watched both their Newcastle sides doesn't really convince me either. So either a. I'm stupid, or b. you're overestimating the quality of play under Hughton based on emotional distress due to our current bad run. I'm kind of hoping it's not a. They're eight points ahead, two points off a Champions League place, with maybe one or two players who would get near our team. Well, either way. We were nine points ahead of Everton last year, does that make Pardew better than Moyes? Did Pardew have a set of much inferior players like? Personally I think Everton has better players, but that's irrelevant. The point is that you can't make a conclusion on a manager's ability based on a half season or even a full season of good or bad form. You should agree with this. It's a precondition for you to be able to think that Pardew is a terrible manager, You can make a conclusion from a career though - Hughton has yet to do anything but a miraculous job every he's been while Pardew's career is littered with failure apart from one or two seasons. I'll agree that Hughton has consistently performed slightly better than expected in all of his jobs (excluding his stint as caretaker), whereas Pardew's career has been great successes bookended with great failures. Then again, Pardew has also been a manger much longer so he's had more opportunities to fail than Hughton has. Again, I'm still not seeing anything that convinces me that either is a significantly better manager. Hell, we don't even know where Norwich will finish this year yet.

Keegan had us playing our best football since SBR. If you exclude him your statement is true, but that's mostly because everyone else we had since then was absolutely fucking terrible. The football under Hughton was pretty unremarkable. He was sacked before he had the chance to lock into a system that worked for our personnel in the Premiership. 6-0 against Villa and 5-1 against the mackems, aye proper unremarkable that. Those were fantastic results but Hughton didn't have us playing good football consistently in the Premiership. Pardew has his share of remarkable individual results as well.

Obviously if you selectively remember only the good parts of Hughton's reign and compare them with the absolute low point of Pardew you'd come to that conclusion. What were the low points of Hughton's reign then? Getting beat 3-1 away at WBA iirc. Oh no! Everything he did as caretaker, consecutive home losses to Blackpool and Stoke, 1-5 away at Bolton on a run of five matches without a win culminating in his sacking. I'd go on and list the good parts of Pardew's tenure, but it's not as if you don't remember them. You'd rather just ignore them on your quest to be needlessly condescending. None of those are anything other than I expected from a newly promoted team. You obviously had higher expectations, which makes it so odd that you're backing the current manager. Why does he deserve to keep his job and Hughton didn't? I didn't make either of those claims (a. Pardew deserves to keep his job, b. Hughton didn't), I said that I don't see sufficient evidence to determine whether one is a better manager than the other. I'd have thought Hughton being miles ahead in the same division with much poorer players was plenty evidence. It should have been obvious to you from watching their respective Newcastle sides play anyway imo. I'd have to say no, Norwich being five points ahead of us halfway into the season doesn't really offer me conclusive evidence that Hughton is a better manager. Having watched both their Newcastle sides doesn't really convince me either. So either a. I'm stupid, or b. you're overestimating the quality of play under Hughton based on emotional distress due to our current bad run. I'm kind of hoping it's not a. They're eight points ahead, two points off a Champions League place, with maybe one or two players who would get near our team. Well, either way. We were nine points ahead of Everton last year, does that make Pardew better than Moyes? Did Pardew have a set of much inferior players like? Personally I think Everton has better players, but that's irrelevant. The point is that you can't make a conclusion on a manager's ability based on a half season or even a full season of good or bad form. You should agree with this. It's a precondition for you to be able to think that Pardew is a terrible manager,

Obviously if you selectively remember only the good parts of Hughton's reign and compare them with the absolute low point of Pardew you'd come to that conclusion. What were the low points of Hughton's reign then? Getting beat 3-1 away at WBA iirc. Oh no! Everything he did as caretaker, consecutive home losses to Blackpool and Stoke, 1-5 away at Bolton on a run of five matches without a win culminating in his sacking. I'd go on and list the good parts of Pardew's tenure, but it's not as if you don't remember them. You'd rather just ignore them on your quest to be needlessly condescending. None of those are anything other than I expected from a newly promoted team. You obviously had higher expectations, which makes it so odd that you're backing the current manager. Why does he deserve to keep his job and Hughton didn't? I didn't make either of those claims (a. Pardew deserves to keep his job, b. Hughton didn't), I said that I don't see sufficient evidence to determine whether one is a better manager than the other. I'd have thought Hughton being miles ahead in the same division with much poorer players was plenty evidence. It should have been obvious to you from watching their respective Newcastle sides play anyway imo. I'd have to say no, Norwich being five points ahead of us halfway into the season doesn't really offer me conclusive evidence that Hughton is a better manager. Having watched both their Newcastle sides doesn't really convince me either. So either a. I'm stupid, or b. you're overestimating the quality of play under Hughton based on emotional distress due to our current bad run. I'm kind of hoping it's not a. They're eight points ahead, two points off a Champions League place, with maybe one or two players who would get near our team. Well, either way. We were nine points ahead of Everton last year, does that make Pardew better than Moyes?

Keegan had us playing our best football since SBR. If you exclude him your statement is true, but that's mostly because everyone else we had since then was absolutely fucking terrible. The football under Hughton was pretty unremarkable. He was sacked before he had the chance to lock into a system that worked for our personnel in the Premiership.

Obviously if you selectively remember only the good parts of Hughton's reign and compare them with the absolute low point of Pardew you'd come to that conclusion. What were the low points of Hughton's reign then? Getting beat 3-1 away at WBA iirc. Oh no! Everything he did as caretaker, consecutive home losses to Blackpool and Stoke, 1-5 away at Bolton on a run of five matches without a win culminating in his sacking. I'd go on and list the good parts of Pardew's tenure, but it's not as if you don't remember them. You'd rather just ignore them on your quest to be needlessly condescending. None of those are anything other than I expected from a newly promoted team. You obviously had higher expectations, which makes it so odd that you're backing the current manager. Why does he deserve to keep his job and Hughton didn't? I didn't make either of those claims (a. Pardew deserves to keep his job, b. Hughton didn't), I said that I don't see sufficient evidence to determine whether one is a better manager than the other. I'd have thought Hughton being miles ahead in the same division with much poorer players was plenty evidence. It should have been obvious to you from watching their respective Newcastle sides play anyway imo. I'd have to say no, Norwich being five points ahead of us halfway into the season doesn't really offer me conclusive evidence that Hughton is a better manager. Having watched both their Newcastle sides doesn't really convince me either. So either a. I'm stupid, or b. you're overestimating the quality of play under Hughton based on emotional distress due to our current bad run. I'm kind of hoping it's not a.

Obviously if you selectively remember only the good parts of Hughton's reign and compare them with the absolute low point of Pardew you'd come to that conclusion. What were the low points of Hughton's reign then? Getting beat 3-1 away at WBA iirc. Oh no! Everything he did as caretaker, consecutive home losses to Blackpool and Stoke, 1-5 away at Bolton on a run of five matches without a win culminating in his sacking. I'd go on and list the good parts of Pardew's tenure, but it's not as if you don't remember them. You'd rather just ignore them on your quest to be needlessly condescending. None of those are anything other than I expected from a newly promoted team. You obviously had higher expectations, which makes it so odd that you're backing the current manager. Why does he deserve to keep his job and Hughton didn't? I didn't make either of those claims (a. Pardew deserves to keep his job, b. Hughton didn't), I said that I don't see sufficient evidence to determine whether one is a better manager than the other.

I will allow myself one smug "I was right"

Obviously if you selectively remember only the good parts of Hughton's reign and compare them with the absolute low point of Pardew you'd come to that conclusion. What were the low points of Hughton's reign then? Getting beat 3-1 away at WBA iirc. Oh no! Everything he did as caretaker, consecutive home losses to Blackpool and Stoke, 1-5 away at Bolton on a run of five matches without a win culminating in his sacking. I'd go on and list the good parts of Pardew's tenure, but it's not as if you don't remember them. You'd rather just ignore them on your quest to be needlessly condescending.

Obviously if you selectively remember only the good parts of Hughton's reign and compare them with the absolute low point of Pardew you'd come to that conclusion.

Based on what? Didn't a team revolving around Nolan beat us comfortably a few weeks ago? Sick of hearing "he deserved better, such dignity". He's simply a miles better manager. That's just jumping to conclusions based on the heat of the moment. We had our share of bad spells and embarrassing results with Hughton as well. Don't think either is appreciably better than the other.