Gallowgate Toon

If the rumours from the weekend turned out to be OTT and he's in a decent headspace, I'd chuck him in. He's shit but probably just a bit less shit than the others and he doesn't hide and plays with a modicum of passion. It mightn't be fashionable to admit it but we do need some fighters in there because it's not going to be skill that gets us out of this mess.

Did he say yesterday that '4 or 5' players said they wanted to play the game yesterday and didn't need a rest? Surely all f***ing 14 of them from Saturday should be chomping at the bit to rectify the situation we're in.

Shame he wasn't like that when his mate (who he still speaks with regularly) was in charge.

'I thought we had enough possession and opportunities... created enough opportunities and chances to score'. Really? Doesn't sound like it. de Jong apparently had two really good chances, so I heard, so he's probably referring to them and trying to put a more positive slant on it?

Hahaha. You'd like to think motivation would be less of an issue for this, plus they're hardly in great shape, but you just know our lot are going to come out quivering wrecks.

Jeez, surely nobody can be that mentally weak in supposed top-level sport? Our lot seem to crumble at the slightest pressure, like, it's absolutely pathetic. Bunch of fannies who think they're better than they really are. If they fucking accepted it, dug in and got on with shit, we might just do a bit better.

http://i.imgur.com/wSXKNs8.png Barely won the possession Fuck me, how awful.

Anywhere got stats of the game?

Only good thing about all this is the pressure keeps up on this detestable arsehole. Fuck you, Mike.

*gulp* Doing himself no favours with this. All for protecting players etc. but just be honest about the game.

Heard he went absolutely off it with them, not that it makes a difference. Would be class if he went all Pulis and nutted the shit out of one of the cunts wearing nowt but a cap.

Were they ever this critical of Pardew?

I stand by that. With the right manager it is, no doubt in my mind. There's so much more to it than McClaren, man. I'm talking midtable, not top 6 or something? Would you have West Brom's squad over ours? Leicester's? Villa's? Stoke's? Our squad is flawed, seriously flawed even, but your average, midtable Premier League club doesn't have a significantly better or deeper squad than ours in my opinion. That's not just true today, it's true for the past three to four years of unmitigated failure where three consecutive managers have failed to get it playing at its potential, let alone have it be more than the sum of its parts. Their squads have defenders that can defend and midfielders that can compete physically in a midfield battle. We might have some technically nice players but that's not even half the battle in a league like ours. Plus our lot have no bottle and aren't fighters, another big difference.

What is going to fix this without Ashley going? It's far beyond tactics and stuff, it's a deep problem. I honestly think it'd take a monumental managerial appointment to get this lot interested and respecting the club.

Agreed, they are s*** at picking themselves, s*** at training themselves, s*** at motivating themselves etc. They have to take some responsibility, man.

Sounds like players, once again, only find the nerve to try something when we're a goal down. Cowards.

A proper centre back and central midfielder would see us through fine, striker and left back next. It's the defensive spine of the team that's killing us. There's more goals across the squad, IMO, but they need to be confident and have a platform to work from.

This is what I'd go with as well. His main focus should be drilling into Wijnaldum-Sissoko the intensity and defensive appetite they need for central midfield in this country. They're already decent players going forward but they have to do it the other way too. Our defence is going to need compensating for and they have the physicality, they just need to bring the energy and have some discipline.

Too philosophy-focused, imo, we've had to tighten up after the opening minutes in 4 of the 6 games. Had too much faith in their ability and mental strength to cope. Haidara has been dispossessed in his own third 9 times this season, only Glen Johnson has more. Think that says it all. This playing out from the back stuff might be starting to look better but there's a time and a place. In the opening minutes against confident, direct opposition isn't that time I agree with this. Trouble is without Mitrovic there's no option to go direct ourselves, which takes an option away to play some Pardew front foot football The next best option for us is percentages clearances up the flank, probably. Still pretty shit but better than pretty much gifting opposition the chance to get the ball in and around the box. Looking forward to Mitro back, not least because he's not a moderate enough character to need the time to settle before bollocking the shit out of players

I'd agree, if he had the biggest say in picking players, but that doesn't seem to be the case. He's still playing to someone else's tune.

Too philosophy-focused, imo, we've had to tighten up after the opening minutes in 4 of the 6 games. Had too much faith in their ability and mental strength to cope. Haidara has been dispossessed in his own third 9 times this season, only Glen Johnson has more. Think that says it all. This playing out from the back stuff might be starting to look better but there's a time and a place. In the opening minutes against confident, direct opposition isn't that time

Get the team he wants to play against Chelsea out there and try and work out as many kinks as possible before the weekend. This lot need to play together.

Hmm. This could be a good thing but not if they go too knee jerk. Don't think they need to ditch everything they've done and start again, after watching the other game back, but they do need tighten the side up and realise deficiencies in the middle. We conceded two opportunities (one was the goal) in the first 10 from full backs trying to play it out and we're too brittle for that. Persist with Wijnaldum in the middle and hope to fuck he adapts to the defensive side quickly and focus on growing into games, we simply must stop conceding early, it's the worst case scenario for our players.

It's almost like they've had solid foundations to work off and have backed the manager with what he needed.

Colback's positioning was actually OK on Saturday, tbf, better than before. I agree that the positioning for a DM that can handle himself is really important but when they're someone that gets run through so easily and struggles to get close to players (and doesn't really get any support from other midfielders), I don't think it makes much of a difference Basically, stick Anita in for Colback on Saturday and you get the same problems. Neither of those two is going to change how those goals were conceded. If you want to institute a passing game from the back then choosing Colback over Anita is f***ing idiotic seeing as we all agree they're both not very good DM's. Why are you so hyperbolic about this, man? It'd be 'idiotic' if Colback was a much worse passer than Anita and lacked any technical ability, but he doesn't, that's about all he's good at. He's a slightly worse short passer but probably has a bit more range in him. The movements the DM needs to make are incredibly simple, they're hardly the main man in splitting the centre halves the way we try to, not when our centre backs seem to be better on the ball. Once again, Anita is the better choice but the difference between the two is marginal. Which is my original point, you're making out like playing Colback over Anita is some sort of terrible decision, when, in reality, the difference between the two is really quite small.