themanupstairs

He would get his money back quicker if we were involved in the shake up at the end of the season, attract better sponsorship, club would become more self sufficent and he could have his shoddy sports wear company along for the ride.

 

Sigh.

Game over IMO. Spurs will not score unless they get a penalty.

That's shoulder to back, not shoulder to shoulder.

BTW how shit is that Naughton? Looks like a homophobe dear in gay strobe lights.

Spurs are dogshit

One or two usually means none.

When does he ever say anything other than one or two? It's the bog standard line every window.

That's foul.

Drafted Khal Drogo, Sissoko and Howard in for Giroud, Shelvey and Jaaskalainen for this week and took the points hit. My intuition says to captain Coleman or Barkley, as I have the feeling one of them will hit a couple of goals in their match against Fulham.

 

Do your intuitions have a past history of coming to fruition?

Yes except I never follow my intuition and end up opting for the more sensible captain. And regretting it.

Drafted Khal Drogo, Sissoko and Howard in for Giroud, Shelvey and Jaaskalainen for this week and took the points hit. My intuition says to captain Coleman or Barkley, as I have the feeling one of them will hit a couple of goals in their match against Fulham.

Interesting comments from harper if anyone listened to total sport. Said before the start of last season pardew wanted them averaging the same amount as passes as top four(around 550 I think?) but found it hard to implement with the squad changing so much with Europe. Seem to be seeing what he wanted to do last season, this season.

 

Well at least he's recognised that the direct football route will only take you so far, but the worry remains for me that it's not his natural instinct like it was for Keegan, so we'll have to see how it will hold up under pressure. Also he needs to work out how to translate harmless possession in your own half to passing that will actually hurt the opposition. Swansea for example pushed men very aggressively into our half and we found that hard to cope with. Will Pardew be able to do that against the lesser teams?

In theory if he has the right personnel on the pitch, then it shouldn't be a problem. Attack minded and/or progressive minded players such as Cabaye, Anita, Ben Arfa, Remy, Gouffran, Sissoko, and even Vuckic, Sammy, as well as our two starting fullbacks have more than enough in their locker to hurt teams.

That's some serious money laundering. Absolute filth how these cunts are allowed to take charge of clubs and splash money around like it's nothing while billions around the world live in poverty. It's fucking shameful. The human race at its very worst.

Would be nice to win this and put a bit of daylight between us and them. No use getting this far only to get complacent. We are away to Palace and home to Stoke after this, and I reckon 7 points from 12 would be a decent way to end the year

He is the best RB in the league at the moment but he won't be getting any plaudits because he isn't British or playing for a "big" club.

Agreed. I'd even go as far saying he's one of the best defenders in the league on current form.

 

You're precious sometimes like. From your perspective that was a performance that took you by surprise. The only thing that I was surprised by was that it was against Man United away and that Pardew finally got us to win the game through retaining possession.

 

A lot of people have being saying for quite a while that that's what those players are capable of and how we should be playing most of the time, instead of resigning posession and sitting on slender leads.

Throughout the match, and with all of Man U's futile attempt at getting an equalizer, I always thought if there was going to be a second goal in the match it would be us getting it. Never looked in doubt tbh. I didn't feel as nervous as I did in the last few minutes against Norwich or WBA, the reason being the point you make in the bolded paragraph.

Imagine how wonderful it would be to watch every match. Imagine taking life for granted enough that you couldn't be arsed to watch every match and get paid for it.

 

Wednesday night, for example, there was like 8 games. It would be absolutely impossible so I don't know why, week on week, they try and pass it off that they've seen all the games.

That's showbiz

There's that as well, a settled back 4 for once is probably a contributing factor as well.

Yup. I think there's more to his crap performances when he first joined than just him being shit at the time.

'Getting used to the league' can cover many things but it doesn't excuse the almost laughable lack of recovery pace he showed in some matches, or some of the diabolical decision-making that resulted in penalties and red cards. Some of it was schoolboy stuff.

 

He's in great form now - happy days - but it doesn't change my opinion of how he played previously. As Tiresias says above, he's clearly bucked his ideas up.

 

It actually does.... because he came from France were the pace was a lot slower he could get himself back into position.

 

He thought he could get away with it here but he can't so he's adapted his game, hardly ever see himself allow players to get in behind him anymore his positional sense is a lot better.

 

He's had to adapt his game a bit to adapt to the league and as you say its all happy days now.

There are a lot of factors that go into this. It's not only him who has adapted his game. Pardew looks to have also adapted to Debuchy's playing style. Sissoko now covers for his marauding runs, and quite often slots into RB while Debuchy catches his breath and jogs back into position. Clearly instructions coming from the manager and coaches during training and match preparation.

This whole dorty foreigners are all glory hunters is fucking bollocks. It's a fucking global sport, and has been for 20 years. My first exposure to NUFC was through watching a documentary on a disabled girl (big fan), and how her love for NUFC kept her positive and made up for all the difficulties she faced. The name of the club stuck with me, and I followed the results on ceefax and Match magazine, and by the end of that season, NUFC were promoted to the premier league, managed by Kevin Keegan.

The rest is history.

If that's considered glory hunting, then fuck it. Whatever. I'm still here 20 odd years later, and if any "true" supporter doesn't like it, they can fuck right off because I'm going nowhere.

Although we are winning more than we lose at the moment, there is a huge discrepancy in our performances and style of play and this is what lets Pardew down and will always pin him down as a poor to average limited manager. We can clearly play good football and we can clearly play positive attacking football but each game is jekyll and hyde and that for me is down to Pardew.

 

Under KK and Sir Bobby we played the same way every week regardless of players. Sometimes we would lose, sometimes heavily, but on average we won more than we lost and we did so playing a positive attack minded game that allowed our better players to shine. Tactcis, systems and this and that rarely if ever came into the equation. After all its a simple game.

 

Our opponents today under their previous manager would more often than not play the same way week in week out come win lose or draw or players available for selection. Your better managers stick with what works best and players who fit into what works best.

 

Pardew tinkers too much and doesn't trust his players enough, we chop and change from one week to another in terms of system, set-up, approach and use of players or even player roles. When we don't do that i.e. the last 4 games prior to Swansea, we win all 4. Now I'm not saying there is no room for selecting different tactics, systems, game plans, players etc. for certain games because today proves otherwise, but by god man, just pick your best players in the right roles and let them play, give them the confidence to perform and get at the opposition because as players, we are better to a man, than 75% of the division in my opinion.

 

To Pardew's credit he has done that quite a lot this season but when he starts trying to be too clever or over too dogmatic, we f*** up and often big style. Today called for some tinkering and changes but at home to your Hulls, Norwichs' etc. just f***ing unleash them both f***ing halves.

In a nutshell

DAT tackle in the first half 

All over the park today. Stupendous effort. Should still be wearing the armband. It's not about taking it away from Colo, but rather giving it to Tiote because he has been transformed since he got it the first time round.

That wasn't what I was referring to.

I know. I just thought maybe RC hasn't seen the game and didn't know about the incident.

 

Stone wall penalty should have been given tbh. Scandalous refereeing of late. This handball in the box gig needs looking at big style by FIFA.

 

Should have been given. Can only imagine that the referee didn't see it hit the arm and thought it hid his head. Missed call though.

Just seen the replays, Mason was standing head on to it. If he's missed it, then he really needs his eyes and brain checked. Absolutely shambolic that Ramires dives to rob WBA of a win, and handballs such as Sandro's and Williams' the other night go unnoticed.