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Who is this disgusting commentator and why is he in love with Stoke so much?

Thinking about transfers is a lot more fun at this point than thinking about the actual games.

I can't even begin to imagine who we'd replace him with. Yes, were utter, utter shit but we're still more likely to get out of this with him rather than rolling the die on someone new. We're NUFC fans. We should know this by now. He shouldn't be sacked unless he's irrevocably lost the dressing room. (Granted, that may or may not have happened already.) This should be a principle that applies to almost all managers, not just Pardew.

You see all these managers wax lyrical about Alex Ferguson, but they seemingyl pay no real attention to what he actually does, or try to emulate him. This guy always plays two attacking full backs, two attacking widemen, has no defensive midfielder, regularly forces three strikers into his team, and still whips everyone. How about you try at least some of these ideas sometime? How about not being so gutless? How about not worrying about being tight defensively all the bloody time. Negative B.S. sick of it. To be fair, most other managers don't have the luxury of having the best players in the world in their squads. When you have limited players, it's easier to play limited football.

Our problem is everything really. Can't defend, can't attack, can't string two passes together. It's baffling.

QPR

I wish he could make it work but there's probably no way back for him if we lose at Southampton. He's already just about lost the fans and the dressing room will probably soon follow. This is crazy, given that we're only in November of a season after finishing fifth.

Utter shambles. Wish I knew what was wrong and what could be done to fix it

I just think it's better if we're able to look for reasons why things have changed for the worse from last year rather than just saying "I hate him and he's always been shit." The former at least gives us some sort of clue as to how to begin to improve things while the latter just leads to morbid negativity. Obviously it's his fault if the players aren't playing as well since he's the manager. Nobody's trying to deflect responsibility here. I just think the causes for his failure are a bit more complex as opposed to him just being a complete imbecile. Given that we're basically stuck with him, I don't think it would be good for my mental health to start believing in the latter. This is a tough spot for him and he's definitely feeling the pressure. The last time he was under pressure at this club (his arrival) he came out with flying colors. Hoping the same can happen here.

It's really hard to make any sort of meaningful statistical argument about football. Too many moving parts.

Also, a short pass for Williamson could be passing it back meaninglessly to Krul, while most of Cabaye's short passes would probably be contested.

Where is this from btw? http://www.whoscored.com/Teams/23/Show/England-Newcastle-United via Opta. I admittedly haven't done the math, but you'd assume that Cabaye plays significantly more long passes because he plays significantly more passes period. It's average per game, although it's actually "accurate long passes per game" which may skew the figures somewhat in favour of Cabaye playing more as he's more likely to find his man. They show we play a fair amount more than anyone else, both as a percentage of our total passes and in general. What I mean is Cabaye plays 45.9 passes per game while say... Williamson only plays 32.5, so obviously Cabaye's long passes would be higher than Williamson for that reason, regardless of whether we're going by total or per game. Just briefly doing the math, Cabaye comes out as about 20.47% long passes as a proportion of total passes. Williamson is 19.61%, Colo 21.5%, Simpson 20.54%. I doubt any of those differences are statistically significant.

Where is this from btw? http://www.whoscored.com/Teams/23/Show/England-Newcastle-United via Opta. I admittedly haven't done the math, but you'd assume that Cabaye plays significantly more long passes because he plays significantly more passes period.

I highly doubt that any manager specifically instructs his players to "always play it long" or "always play it short." (Okay, there might be a couple exceptions...) There's no question Pardew does prefer a direct style as his primary mode of attack, but that doesn't mean that he tells the players to always hit it up to Demba even if there's an easy pass 5~6 yards away. We'll be set up to primarily exploit longer passes, but the players should also be ready to take opportunities to bring it up from deep when possible. A lot of our strength last year was our ability to mix it up. We were primarily focused on being solid defensively and relying on getting it up to the final third quickly for our attacking players, but when space was there, we had the capability to set up deeper, more gradual attacks. This made it difficult for the opposition to stifle us by adapting to a singular mode of play. This year it's all Plan A and no Plan B. As far as I'm concerned that's down to the players who had previously been responsible to the transition phase of our less direct attacks being horrendously out of form. Not because the tactical instructions have changed.

Find that very far fetched personally. I find the idea that Pardew would specifically instruct the players to always just lump it forward to be significantly less probable.

It's funny how since coming back up to the Premiership, we've very rapidly gone from being a team that's heavily reliant on wide play and set pieces to being a team that doesn't do any of either.

I think there's a bit of a "Chicken/Egg" problem with the whole "only plays long balls" thing. I sincerely doubt that the players are specifically instructed to hoof it long. I think it's just that a lot of our less talented players end up reverting to that because overall movement off the ball is extremely poor so there's rarely an easy pass to pick out. The fundamental problem is a lack of movement and understanding between the players, everything stems from that.

Cabaye was pretty anonymous for his first few appearances and he was playing in a much more functional team. Think it's just a matter of time for Anita. All of his problems seem to stem from lack of understanding rather than lack of ability.

It's revisionist history to be saying that "we were always like this." The tactical shape is the same, but what's different is that with a few exceptions, the individuals are massively out of form. Obviously there weren't a lot of games we "dominated" last year, but it's the norm for most games in any competitive league to be very close. If anything, six dominant results a season is a ridiculously high number for us. What we should be counting is the number of games in which we've looked utterly and completely inept. I think I can count the occasions last year on one hand. This year it's basically every week.

It's perfectly fair since our quality of play is making us look like the second-worst team in the league, but I don't think he gets to shoulder all the blame. We're basically playing the same (mostly uninspired) tactics as last year, but the difference is that individuals aren't preforming. Pardew in my opinion has always been a mediocre tactician but an effective motivator and man manager. The question we should be asking is why the latter part isn't working anymore.

To be honest, this is just about what we've been used to for the past decade or so and what a club in our position should be expecting for the foreseeable future. Last season was a happy fluke, but it makes this season feel that much worse. I think I'd be pretty 'meh' about the whole thing if we finished 10th last year or something.

Aye, it's been way too long since we've had a "sack the board" discussion. Good to be back.

Surely your trips over (you've been to a few games, haven't you?) are what has cemented the support, as opposed to here? I hadn't been until I came on here and the local people I've met in person were people from here. I don't think I'd have gone as often as I have without this place and even so, I certainly wouldn't have had such a good time and positive impression of the city.

To be honest, I probably wouldn't still be supporting NUFC, or at least not to the same intensity, if I hadn't discovered this place. It's a shame that the football section is like a fucking wake whenever we're not playing well, but it's still one of the most wonderful places on the internet. So yeah, I blame everything on you guys.

Everything from relegation to last season has been a hell of a ride. This year is like going back to the kiddy pool. We're not going to get relegated or anything, but it's just so safe and boring and unremarkable. I suppose I might get more excited once we hit the UEFA knockout stages.