Gallowgate Toon

I think he can still have a decent season, it's just dependent on Cabaye at the minute. His movement is still good, it's just 'selfish' in the sense that he only really makes a dash when he sees an opportunity for a goal. Cabaye seems to be the only one that can spot anything for him with any regularity, we need to see more of the combination play that led to Remy's second on Saturday. Giving him consistent chances is going to be key, we have the odd game where he gets an opportunity or two but it's often followed by games where he gets nothing, that's not going to build confidence. For the calls that we need a striker that can do much more and link the side, it's a very short-termist view. Our wing play is a massive issue, a bigger problem than who starts through the middle, we're forcing the need to have a great all-round striker because of it. There are few like Ba who can feed off scraps so well, we simply must improve our wide service first and foremost. Hatem needs to re-find the creativity he had at the back end of 11/12. Edit: See the Fulham game for what we need to do. Cisse hit the bar after Ben Arfa hit an early cross, it's one of the only times we've done that this season. Crossing seems like a last resort for our lot, as a consequence, it's often slow, predictable and allows defenders to regroup. I think our wide service must be one of the worst in the league.

I could see Pardew's thinking by bringing Tiote in but I couldn't help but shake the feeling of complete disappointment that Vurn had been dropped. We could have done with his calm passing in the second half.

Not going to get too worried about him, I didn't have expectations he'd stay and am just looking forward to watching him this season.

Remy is a much better footballer. We'll see if he's as good at consistently scoring goals.

We should be looking at 5 points from the next 4 league games, minimum. I think we might pull out an unexpected win vs. Chelsea or Liverpool.

The best I've seen HBA for us was the back end of 11/12, his team play was better then and I think AP wants him to get back to that level. Dropping him was premature, in my opinion, but it may be better in the long run.

Did this win mean we've already won as many away games as last season?

Only just watched it on Football First, I thought we looked good. A bit dodgy after they scored for a bit but I don't think that's unnatural, momentum is funny in football and it's rare that teams dominate others from start to finish. We certainly need to build our confidence more. I thought the midfield 3 looked very fluid today, Sissoko was popping into the hole at times, Cabaye appeared there at others. We need that kind of unpredictability.

Some good comments from him after the game. Said he wants to keep the team 'looking' offensive and said we'll just have to accept that there might be games it runs away from us but it's important that we stick with it. Edit: NUFCTV interview.

Fair play for today, some bold moves. Massively disappointed in him for dropping Anita though, completely undeserved.

Two absolutely brilliant finishes. He's pure class.

Was he on the left, today?

Unbelievably knee-jerk, if true. Pardew must think it's an attitude issue within the side.

Not really a shock, we've seen he can be a very good player and he's only played a few games for us. Benzema, Giroud and Remy, quite a decent striker pool to pick from.

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. Ron's bang on. We should go there with the remit of being a proper counter-attacking side, draw them out and then hit them with our speed. Playing in that style is the best we've looked over the last couple of seasons, we've got a good side for it.

If it happens, it will be sickening. I still can't believe he actually swapped the whole set up around because of one bad previous game.

Feels like the pressure is really mounting up. All this talk of him making massive changes sound like a man who's run out of ideas and, as a consequence, patience. It is hard with the mystery in football, perhaps the players just aren't listening to him, hence why we get Jekyll/Hyde performances like Everton and Villa. Problem is, that's even worse than him being tactically crap.

I'm sure he'll have blamed the Hull loss on Remy and Ben Arfa as wide men, hence the shift for the Everton game. Completely forgetting the excellent performances they put in at Villa.

Isn't that just Ryder's opinion? Hatem will start on Saturday, I'm sure of it, I just have no idea what position he'll play. Praying Pardew sees sense in keeping the Villa front 3. I'm hoping the presence of Sissoko and Anita will make it impossible for him to go 4-4-2.

It's more than just individual mistakes, pretty much every time we've conceded this season, there have been errors by about 4 players. Even with Taylor back in, we can't let our centre backs become so exposed again, we don't have anyone good enough to play like that. Pardew needs to get back to basics with this defence and get them solid. Neville had it spot on, we should be looking to build ourselves into matches, start off as a compact unit and then grow into the game. I think that's how it needs to be for the next couple of months, then we can look at being more expansive from the off.

He drives like a maniac. Speeding about the pedestrian streets of Ponteland at 50 mph.

What's worrying me is where we go from here. I literally don't have the foggiest as to how he's going to set us up next. He's made a lot of noise this season about looking more offensive and finding a balance, from his sound bites, it seems he thinks that defensive mistakes are simply individual ones and having a more conservative set of attackers and midfielders is what will remedy the issue. There have been individual mistakes, don't get me wrong, but the situation has often been because of a series of errors by a number of players. He needs to change the style of the side a bit but keep the personnel that we saw against Villa, perhaps stick Taylor in for one of the centre halves. That front trio should never be messed with again (bar Gouffran for Cisse) but I'm not sure whether we'll see it for a while, I think the Hull game might have made him re-think their suitability.

As if Kinnear blocked Douglas, man

Confused. We're just not pulling in the same direction, at any level.

It might not be a coincidence that he's been bad since Debuchy came in. It may very well be that Pardew has tried to make us more expansive and failed miserably at it. Santon's never been the best positionally but he seems to get caught high up the pitch with some regularity.