furney89

If we win i couldnt care if HBA started or not. If we struggle and get a poor result...then the pressure should be put on pardew as of ...why didnt he start? I think 4-4-2 with HBA somewhere in midfield and with Shola and Best up top would be our strongest lineup, but i guess we have to just trust pardew on this one and see what result we get.

this game is very dangerous. i think it will be more difficult then we think. New manager, and alot of fringe players going out to prove a point. Weve got to start two up front, with HBA somewhere in midfield.

they need to find a way best shola and hba can all play in the same team. Starting with 4-4-1-1 is just not threatening enough against a team like blackburn at home

with the way liverpool play, i think itl be more important how our fullbacks play than our center backs. bellamy, suarez kuyt downing could give a torrid time for either raylor or simpson. colo and willo will be fine, but i fear were going to be very vulnerable from out wide with pace and with the wide players coming inside. they could potentially tear us inside out if they start with suarez and bellamy behind a main striker. With our record at Anfield im not optimistic, but this team dont give up and maybe we can grab a draw.

Names of stadiums are purely cosmetic. It will be forever SJP. Why let the fat bastard damped the mood. Lets concentrate on the football and not get wound up by that. After all for the past year or two its been SJP @ Sports Direct. Whats really the big difference? It will always been SJP. End Of. Lets not fuel the media to damped the great start we've had

I think the most important point about not getting a striker is that they (the board) are jeopardising the club again. they are gambling the future of the club again by not willing to invest in personnel, just like when we got relegated in 09. Non of us want to waste money on players that will not offer much more than what we have, but we are seriously thin on senior squad numbers, even more so than last year! we WILL go through a bad patch,every team has a poor run or month etc,things will no doubt meltdown again here, but how major that bad patch will be depends how lucky we are with injurys...and with the lack of quality in depth and strong characters there is a chance that it could be particularly bad patch. i just find it irresponsible on the clubs part not to fill the gaps in like-for-like, i.e sell your best striker...and replace him with a top quality striker. The board will know that relegation again would be catastrophic for the club, but they dont seem that bothered about gambling on luck to see us through another season in the premier league.

im all for generating extra revenue for the club for something cosmetic, but its not as if were getting any money for this. its signage for his company, which is basically free advertisement. stuff like signage and sponsors only are ever temporary and will never be permanent. if the club were to get 10mil or more cash for simply changing the ground name, id definitely take it. It will always be SJP to me, always and no doubt 90% of other people.

i meen you can run the club on a tight budget and count the pennies etc and drive hard bargains for players - most clubs work that way at the moment with the exception of a few, but its the manner in which they conduct themselves at times which is baffling. Last gasp desperate bids for players and the countless PR blunders, as well as treatment of senior staff, ex-managers and shocking communications (which is probably harming them more than anything) etc. They are all recurring themes and it seems like they really have no idea how to run a football club. Not paying 1million here or there to get a player we desperately NEED (not just want) is absurd and shows they dont have a clue how the market works. i think there needs to be clarification on why and im sure the statement will just be a defence of their practices as usual, instead of admitting any mistakes and helping us all move forward

they will just defend themselves as usual. nothing will come out of a new statement. its not as if there going to be like "oh were so sorry we are going to change our ways and now be ambitious". we need to get used to the way the club is run. its painful i know but until we have new owners, the clubs philosophy and policies will not change. its just so depressing knowing we're settling for average. The people who run the club have never admitted they are in the wrong and will change in the future, and im sure this statement and answering the fans questions will be a show of defence and will again outline what we already know about the clubs policies.

i dont understand all this "drawing up list" talk constantly about our search for a leftback or striker. I know its alot more complex than it used to be (for whatever reasons, but thats what managers keep saying) but surly its a case of, identifying a player, making an enquiry and then moving on or placing a firm offer and negotiate from their. its abit late now to be drawing down a list of strikers or leftbacks when we knew this situation was going to occur since February 1st! and the excuse of jose leaving and saying "we didnt want two expensive fullbacks on our books" doesnt wash. you agree everything but dont sign the documents till you have someone else in. Liverpool done that with torres so why couldnt we with jose? it just seems abit strange. its pretty obvious weve got a limited budget but we are short in both departments. i just dont understand why were leaving it this late as if this is all some kind of shock the position we are in squad wise

its understandable why people are underwhelmed. I must admit i was at first, however with little available in our price range we cant really hope for much better. Its encouraging to see that pardew recognises weak areas on the team, pace was definitely a problem across the midfield, but it now feels like we have depth in this area that can be relied upon without having to play the guthries of this world wide right because we have no wide players. Thinking of where we have come from, its quite refreshing for us to buy 'squad' players. However its still very concerning we still dont look close to a new striker and no LB cover (unless pieter does sign) i hope the lad does well

While this is a good way to bump up the numbers and the bench, pardew has said he want s one or two players in, and if this is one of them its very underwheling. Yeah he will be a decent squad member, but will from what I've seen he wouldn't offer us much different. I just hope we can bring in more players who will be an upgrade on what we have, which I realise is difficult since there Iis not a lot available. I just don't want us to sign anyone simply to appease the pressure on the board by fans and players to sign players. I'll support anyone in a black and white shirt so I'm hoping this lad does well

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_7079900,00.html surprising? no

Unreal if he did, a billion miles away last night but this morning? Who fuking knows. I feel its an attempt by the club to win favour with the fans, to show they tried everything...either that or he's not getting the offers he was told e would get and the club have turned round and said sack your agent and we can settle this with a new contract. Would be brilliant to see that c*** sacrificed in all this. Think it's all straw clutching and he'll still leave though. Barnetta will do me as a replacement though. if barton did sign a new contract it would be win win for every party. he would hold abit more value for when he does move in the future and he is likely to take a small wage cut. for the pardew he gets to keep a senior pro and a good squad member with some quality. it sounds like the board just have some personal dislike for him, but that said, if there willing to sort it out, then whats stopping him sign a new contract down the line? i still think barnetta will come in whatever now routledge has gone, we are very short on attacking players in general, and having barton and barnetta would give us alot more options on the right hand side. What this episode has shown us is, that far from the insane ramblings of Barton's agent would suggest, Barton doesn't hold any resale value. No club has taken up the option to sign even on a free transfer. If Barton wants to climb down off his high horse and sign a new contract on reasonable terms, fair enough, but if I was Pardew I'd have difficulty in trusting him again. If he stays it will be just to play out the last year while behaving himself I would have thought. yeah, thats a good point about the resale value. i dont think pardew comes into this really. as its became apparent this summer (and possibly with every other manager under ashley) pardew has to just deal with what hes dealt. I cant imagine he has any say in this saga, his priority is winning games, and he'l have to play his strongest team with maybe barton in it whether he trusts him or not. pardew has publicly backed every decision the club has made, so lets not be surprised when he comes out with the usual bullshit how he always wanted 'joey' to stay when the club board make a uturn, likewise if he goes it will be quite the opposite.

Unreal if he did, a billion miles away last night but this morning? Who fuking knows. I feel its an attempt by the club to win favour with the fans, to show they tried everything...either that or he's not getting the offers he was told e would get and the club have turned round and said sack your agent and we can settle this with a new contract. Would be brilliant to see that c*** sacrificed in all this. Think it's all straw clutching and he'll still leave though. Barnetta will do me as a replacement though. if barton did sign a new contract it would be win win for every party. he would hold abit more value for when he does move in the future and he is likely to take a small wage cut. for the pardew he gets to keep a senior pro and a good squad member with some quality. it sounds like the board just have some personal dislike for him, but that said, if there willing to sort it out, then whats stopping him sign a new contract down the line? i still think barnetta will come in whatever now routledge has gone, we are very short on attacking players in general, and having barton and barnetta would give us alot more options on the right hand side.

he'l end up signing a new contract

i dont see what peoples fascination about him is. larsson is nothing better than what we have. People just think hes a a better player than he is because hes available on a free. he has good delivery and decent from dead ball situations but he would add very little to our team. He reminds me very much of ryan taylor, who came with the same reputation of being great from set plays etc, but who got found out to be pretty average if not rubbish pretty quick. If we are to "progress" the team and push higher up the table we need to look at other players.

pardew is obviously an ambitious person, if he wasnt he wouldnt of taken the jobs when many people said he was out of his depth, so im expecting him to be ambitious in the transfer market. his recent comments about one or two 'big' players that will get "us out of our seats" being targeted already give a glimpse of his ambition of taking us to the next level, while the signings wont be marquee-esk like in the old days, im sure we will try punch above our weight for one or two targets, similar to ben afra. whether any of them come of: who knows he also proved to be perfect for the board as hes very good at pr. the board lacked any connection with the fans, and with pardew they have struck gold. right from the beggining we have had this image of him being "in" with the board, especially with the rumours about the casino meetings with dezza and contracts being agreed before chris was even sacked, which has led to a feeling that he knows whats really going on in the club and almost a feeling of trust (something i dont have for him) he appears very open and says the right things we want to hear, or so it appears to be,when really he is just very good at pr. when he first came i said you can only judge him on how well he does for us, and hes done pretty decent, and he seems to have won some of the fans over, which bodes well for some stability over the next few years

While i had no problem with him leaving at the time because of his poor attitude, n'zogbia would be perfect for our team now in a football sense, and would add some needed pace and creativity in a team with the likes of nolan and barton who are good for other reasons. he has alot of freedom at wigan, and thinking back to when he was here, it seemed he was quite restricted in terms of where he played because he was mostly very wide. hes obviously matured from the stroppy young lad he was when he was here, when the club was on the brink of meltdown and relegation. who wouldn't want to leave with jfk in charge? alot of things have changed within the club since he left and i think he should be welcomed back as he would clearly add some more excitement to our squad. he wouldnt break our budget either, with him costing a max 10m (probably a bit less, actually who even knows how much?) which isnt too bad really for a quality premiership player im definitely open minded about his return. we could do alot worse, especially with some of the other suggested signings being banded around who clearly wouldn't move us onto the next level because there players for the level were at now (doyle? snodgrass? larsson?)

west ham are down. birmingham only need to get a point tomorrow for them to relegate wham and considering their playing fulham at home, theres a good chance they will get the points. wham deserve it, a complete shambles from beginning of the season to now. they've reminded me of ourselves during our relegation season, albeit they've had different controversy's and problems with overpaid players with huge ego's that need knocked down thinking there better than they actually are.

wolves havent scored often away, also with doyle out its means that individual mistakes are probably going to be likely to give them a sniff. they will clearly come with one up front and aim to frustrate so itl be important we get the first goal. i think shola will cause some problems for them if he fancys it, you can never tell what mood hes going to be in! he might just decide to turn it on going to be tight, going to be 1-1 or a 2-1 result for someone.. hopefully us,we need it! howay the lads

i never thought id see the day we are disappointed leon best is not playing, thats a credit to him!. hes been doing ok. it was hard to see where the goals are going to come from even with him playing, never mind now...

i dont think we signed him to just make it look like we did something, we all know the club is too tight to waste money on appeasing the public by bringing in any players wether they play or not. it was just pure desperation. the deal originally broke down because he failed a medical, and once we became short on numbers attacking wise with carroll leaving we had little option but to take the risk. the deal obviously was in place from the weekend so it was quick and easy to conduct at a late hour. they knew exactly when he signed he was going to be out for a while. when you listen to pardew he seems very relaxed about ireland, he doesnt seem frustrated at all about his "setbacks" which sounds to me that we knew all along what we were getting. i hope he does get a run of games at somepoint. you can only judge him on how he plays for us, if hes great fantastic, sign him up, if not lets just move on.

Difficult to see how we will score. Were doing ok. Seriously lacking in the final third. Games there for the taking. Come on lads!

Ian McGarry says he spoke to a premier league manager said he was offered AC LAST WEEKEND. He also goes on to say people who think this has just happened "all of a sudden" are wrong. He's sure that we cashed in, and that theve played it well to place the blame on AC Grim