ChrisJbarnes

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11667/8363114/The-FA-will-not-be-taking-action-against-Sir-Alex-Ferguson-over-his-Boxing-Day-touchline-rant

I'd rather have a go at EL than finishing top 10 in the league. 10th or 14th doesn't make so big a difference, while a good cup run (let alone winning the trophy) would bring a new enthusiasm around the club. THAT would salvage the season, imho. Agree, but more realistically I think we will get knocked out by Anzhi and end up finishing 9th, 10th or so. That would represent a disappointing, but not catastrophic season.

I think most of the pressure is off us by beating QPR. We've been poor this season, and no-one expects to get anything against Man U or Arsenal away. Nonetheless, there have been some positives in our recent games away to Fulham, Stoke, Wigan and Man City (H). Take all the positives from these games, put them together with a bit of belief, a committed performance and a gameplan, and perhaps a bit of luck and it's not out of the question that we surprise ourselves at the Emirates or OT. I'd be over the moon with a point from the next 6, but even if we lose let's hope for 2 performances to bring back a bit of confidence and push on against Everton (h) in the new year. Despite how poor results have been this season, we are currently still just 5 points off Liverpool in 8th and 10 points off Arsenal in 3rd ( ) . Assuming we lose these two, 20 points from 20 games, get hopefully 1 decent new signing in in January, Cabaye, Taylor and Arfa back and knocked out the EL at some point, we can still push on the premiership and salvage the season and finish top 10 at least.

Definitely the away fans were completely behind him at the stoke away game.

I'd be really surprised if 3 of QPR, Reading, Sunderland, Aston Villa (all of whom have looked utterly abject this season), Wigan, Southampton, Norwich, Stoke and Swansea didn't finish below us. We've looked disappointing and mediocre at best this season, but we've got players that we know can perform, and in a few of the defeats we've had, we've showed promise. Eventually we'll be knocked out the Europa League, will make 1 or maybe 2 uninspiring signings in January and finish at a mid-table finish, which will be a massive letdown. Although results are pretty poor, we are showing some promise and results will pick up, albeit not to the extents we hope. Despite being 4 points off 18th, we're also only 9 points off 4th. 10th for me, although I put money on 7th at 25-1 the other day.

Was just going to post the exact same thing. Its definitely a case of "grass is always greener". I think its characteristic of the knee-jerk nature of this forum that a few people are saying that they'd "love to see" a manager here who we've just beaten 3-0 and who has just kept Wigan up for a couple of seasons (not to discredit that though). We'd inevitably be hounding Martinez out after a few poor results and the vicious circle continues.

A broken clock's right twice a day

Rafel FF captain appears to be a bad call. 3 goals conceded, booked, subbed after 31 mins!

A lot of points dropped today for our champions league rivals!

2-0 Ben Arfa Cisse

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Just got back from the Britannia and I think a lot of people need to get a bit of perspective. I'm gutted with that result, and so were the rest of the Geordie crowd, of which there were a fair few and we provided a great atmosphere for 90 minutes. However, we were extremely unlucky not to win overall. The last 10 minutes were tragic. For 80 minutes, we were the better side and put in a thoroughly professional away performance at a place where it is difficult to pick up any points, let alone play good football. I went into the game expecting an abject performance, and us to not even show up, so any performance whatsoever exceeded my expectations. The manner in which we lost was galling, no doubt. 80 minutes, we are 1-0 up having generally controlled the game and restricted a tough side at home to a couple of chances. After what looked like a blatant penalty to me, we should have been 2-0 up, home and dry and celebrating 3 points and a professional away performance. 2 defensive mistakes in the last 9 minutes gave Stoke the points, after most of the ground thought we would get away with it. We may not have set the world alight today, but I think the players and manager put in a good shift overall tonight, and I've no complaints with individual performances except for Williamson. Tactics were as good as you can expect, effort was there. Confidence seemed to be returning, until the mistakes at the end. Its painfully obvious to me that the main reason we are struggling is the lack of depth in our squad. Look at Stoke's bench (a lower mid table team) vs ours (a European team). They were able to bring on some players that we could use in our squad in terms of depth. Jones and Jerome enabled them to change things whereas we had no options- Marveux perhaps but there might be good reasons why Pardew didnt play him. Take Coloccini and Tiote out of our team and we've not got the reserves leading to our current slump. Williamson is obviously short of what we need, as is Simpson. Retaining Leon Best, signing Debuchy and another centre back, we'd be several places above in the table now and the prize money would increase accordingly. Point your fingers at the beancounters at the top as to why this is not the case. Although I'd obviously have liked significantly more points and performances from the last 4 games, we've hit poor form, and the XI we've put out isnt that great. Pardews obviously not a Mourinho or Guardiola, but he was deservedly manager of the season last year. Since appointed, he's done a sound job, and sacking him would be madness. There's no-one we could get that would be a step forward, and we'd lose the recent stability and credibility that the club has had. It was obvious that with the system we've got, Pardew is the man and he's not going anywhere. Players and manager left the field to sympathetic/ grateful applause from everyone at the Britannia, and Pardews name was sung a few times throughout.

Just got back from the Britannia and I think a lot of people need to get a bit of perspective. I'm gutted with that result, and so were the rest of the Geordie crowd, of which there were a fair few and we provided a great atmosphere for 90 minutes. However, we were extremely unlucky not to win overall. The last 10 minutes were tragic. For 80 minutes, we were the better side and put in a thoroughly professional away performance at a place where it is difficult to pick up any points, let alone play good football. I went into the game expecting an abject performance, and us to not even show up, so any performance whatsoever exceeded my expectations. The manner in which we lost was galling, no doubt. 80 minutes, we are 1-0 up having generally controlled the game and restricted a tough side at home to a couple of chances. After what looked like a blatant penalty to me, we should have been 2-0 up, home and dry and celebrating 3 points and a professional away performance. 2 defensive mistakes in the last 9 minutes gave Stoke the points, after most of the ground thought we would get away with it. We may not have set the world alight today, but I think the players and manager put in a good shift overall tonight, and I've no complaints with individual performances except for Williamson. Tactics were as good as you can expect, effort was there. Confidence seemed to be returning, until the mistakes at the end. Its painfully obvious to me that the main reason we are struggling is the lack of depth in our squad. Look at Stoke's bench (a lower mid table team) vs ours (a European team). They were able to bring on some players that we could use in our squad in terms of depth. Jones and Jerome enabled them to change things whereas we had no options- Marveux perhaps but there might be good reasons why Pardew didnt play him. Take Coloccini and Tiote out of our team and we've not got the reserves leading to our current slump. Williamson is obviously short of what we need, as is Simpson. Retaining Leon Best, signing Debuchy and another centre back, we'd be several places above in the table now and the prize money would increase accordingly. Point your fingers at the beancounters at the top as to why this is not the case. Although I'd obviously have liked significantly more points and performances from the last 4 games, we've hit poor form, and the XI we've put out isnt that great. Pardews obviously not a Mourinho or Guardiola, but he was deservedly manager of the season last year. Since appointed, he's done a sound job, and sacking him would be madness. There's no-one we could get that would be a step forward, and we'd lose the recent stability and credibility that the club has had. It was obvious that with the system we've got, Pardew is the man and he's not going anywhere. Players and manager left the field to sympathetic/ grateful applause from everyone at the Britannia, and Pardews name was sung a few times throughout.

0-1 Williamson to score from a floated set piece. Pardew to be hailed as a tactical mastermind.

So glad I've got a ticket to this- the footballing dream of "a cold, rainy November night in Stoke".

I genuinely wish I had cataracts

http://www.mtnfootball.com/content/newcastle~1.jpg http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/nechronical/feb2012/4/8/newcastle-united-strike-duo-papiss-cisse-and-demba-ba-388711192.jpg http://xalimasn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/ba_cisse-298x295.jpg http://thinkfootball.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/demba-ba-papiss-cisse-360.jpg Looks like they hate each others guts to me

Birmingham v Aston Villa in the carling cup 2 seasons ago. I live in Aston and had to walk to St Andrews, both areas are absolutely shite. Not nearly enough policemen, dark and cold evening. You could tell it was all going to kick off before the game, and I was sat in the small section of home fans next to the away end. The villa fans were kicking down the intersection between the sets of fans and came and smashed up the toilets and started fights. Blues fans getting involved as well. We saw a Birmingham fan say "wait here" to his kid whilst he went and got involved in the fight. Stewards weren't interested in doing anything and the police couldn't organise an orgy in a whorehouse. Full scale pitch invasion at the end with flares being thrown between the sets of fans and Villa fans ripping seats up. Wall to wall scum and both sets of fans disgraced themselves. Never seen anything like it, the whole ground might as well have been a holding pen for the Jeremy Kyle show, cant have been more than 2 or 3 surnames in the crowd that night!

4-3-3 and we'll play like Barcelona. WBA are more matalan than catalan.

GW3: 1. 0-1 2. 2-0 3. 3-1 4. 1-1 5. 0-0 6. 3-0 7. 1-0 8. 2-0 9. 1-3

1. 2-0 2. 1-1 3. 2-0 4. 2-1 5. 1-1 6. 1-1 7. 2-2 8. 0-3 9. 3-0 10. 1-1 11. 2-0

Not long til we're wearing red and blue stripes tbh

This is my local team. Paul Scally is a proper arsehole of a man, but I'm really disappointed to hear about this.