themanupstairs

Absolutely gut wrenching. I feel so fucking sick. Cannot believe we came out of that with nothing.

Fuck these red nose wankers. Nothing but a collective pack of cheats down to a man.

Fergie having a go at the refs just before the kick off here. Must have seen the replays in the dressing room.

Mikel Beck

Stefano Eranio

Steve Potts

Both kids are ill. To the extent where I've had to sleep on the floor. I've had 4 hours kip. As such the last thing I need is to have the opening of every present greeted with papparazzi style photography and flash. Fair to say things are tense.

Sorry man but

Why are you being so pretentious? "Excuses", what excuses? He's had a clear dip in form and people are trying to come up with reasons why, they aren't excuses.

 

It's not like there has been any reports of him not pulling his weight in training, or he isn't applying himself on the pitch, there are clearly other reasons for his dip in form. I don't necessarily think it's all Pardew's fault, that would be harsh, but at the moment it is as he's playing him on the f***ing wing.

 

Trying to come up with reasons why his form has dipped and then only ending up with reasons outside of his control is what I call making excuses. Pretty sure that's what making excuses means too, but than again English is nog my mother tongue so I may be wrong..

 

As for the reason why Cisse has been so disappointing, I don't know and I din't want to theorise. What I do know though, and that's how this argument started, is that moving Ba who is scoring away from goal to accomodate a stuttering Cisse in the centre seems like utter madness to me.

 

As mad as moving Cisse away from the centre to accommodate a sulking, stuttering Ba?

 

Beggars f***ing belief this like.

 

I knew this was coming. I for one am perfectly happy for our best players to request being played in their preferred position, as long as they deliver when they are. Ba has delivered whenever he has played in the centre for us, Cisse hasn't so far this season, so with a change from two to one central striker it was obvious he was the one going wide for a while or out of the first team altogether (which I would have preferred btw). I fully expect Cisse to get frustrated for being played out wide, just as Ba did. Four games in, and the first signs were there last Saturday. He will have to walk the walk too though, like Ba did when he requested to play centrally. As I said, in a 433 there is only one place for a real central striker, which they both are. May the best one win. At the moment that is Ba. I really hope Cisse refinds his form of last year and reclaims his place. That's primarily up to him though; if he keeps missing chances at this rate it may be a while yet. If he starts banging them in I am sure nobody will be more delighted than Pardew himself.

 

The manager needs to do what's best for the team based on the evidence available. He's not doing it, and he wouldn't be sacrificing anything by trying something which worked so well last season.

 

If Cisse was playing anywhere near as well as last season we wouldn't even be having this debate. As it is, displacing the forward who is doing the business to accomodate the one who isn't is indeed a huge sacrifice considering where we would be right now if Ba's form was like Cisse's this season.

 

We did it at the start of this season for the sake of a sulking striker. Why can't we do it now for the sake of an under performing team getting s*** results?

 

Except we didn't. We reverted to the tactic we employed for 80% of our matches last season to great effect and accommodated both Ba and Cisse in central forward positions in an attempt to combine our defensive solidity of last season with playing two top class strikers capable of scoring 50 goals between them in theory. Whilst it's clearly not worked out as we hoped it would, I find it extremely simplistic to discredit this concept with the benefit of hindsight considering the fact we have also looked extremely vulnerable at times with the 433 formation that's now considered to be some sort of silver bullet by some on here.

 

Excuse me? Are you seriously suggesting that there aren't members of this forum who've expressed their concern about these players in a 4-4-2 since the beginning of last season?

 

Pardew got away with 'keep it tight, nobody move, pass it to Ba' for a good while and it was fun but so many people on here were talking about it being unsustainable.

 

We're discrediting the concept of these players in a 4-4-2 with hindsight? I've heard everything now.

 

A 442 with Ba and Cisse up top, both central, both capable of 25 goals a season in that position in theory and Ben Arfa in support, starting from the right but with a license to roam? It worked with lesser players (Best, Shola) to an extent last season, so yes, I feel it was definitely worth a shot. If Cisse had brought his shooting boots from summer holiday we probably wouldn't even be having this discussion.

Do not disagree with that in theory. I've always said that with 2 strikers capable of 15 odd goals each in half a season, we shouldn't even think twice about playing them together up front, trying to get maximum return. A strike force of Ba and Cisse on paper, if it clicks, could easily get us CL football imo. IF it clicks. Evidence so far seems to be that they don't play well together for whatever reason, but I do not fault Pardew for trying to see if it does. It was bang on the right decision to try it.

Keep in mind that last season it was Obertan who played on the right, and he provided much more width in the 442 than HBA does. One is a natural winger, the other isn't.

Apologies if giggs....but I never read those comments from Pardew. "Manager knows the reasons, which I'm keeping to myself"? Is he telling us that Ba is as good as gone?

Who be the detractors? 

Fuck the detractors.

Best bit of online space on the planet bar none.

Happy holidays everyone 

http://www.paisleydailyexpress.co.uk/renfrewshire-sport/2012/12/24/new-boy-comes-to-toon-87085-32489856/ St.Mirren/Toon tie up....

Excellent. Sounds like Dummett has made the most of his time up there, so I hope this lad sees some significant playing time as well. I know it's a two-bit league and all, but getting the first team experience is far far better than playing in the reserves.

Got to admire the commitment and tenacity, especially on your part Jon. Seriously don't know how you can constantly be arsed arguing these types of positions.

 

To try and move things along a little bit, does anyone else expect Cisse to be dropped for the Man Utd game? Think we'll see Shola coming in personally.

I reckon Obertan and Jonas will play either side of Ba with Cisse dropping to the bench. Should be Marveaux in place of Jonas tbh but that's for another thread.

It's like a merry-go-round in here

 

Wonder who's next up to take on Cajun and Unbelievable? Tag me back in, tag me back in!!

Yup. I give up. Tag.

What do you mean?

 

The main striker role in a 442. As far as excuses being made for his failings this season, that has got to be the funniest yet..

Why is your view of football so rigid? You still haven't answered what you think the reason for his "failings" is? Is he an impostor? Is he turboshit? Is his heart not in it? Has his head been turned by another club? Is he now full of himself acting the billy big bollocks?

Tommy Widdrington.

Yeah he's been disappointing but he's never once played in his own position. Some players are more versatile than others. Anita looked like an utter mug in a central two.

 

Tbh there's very few players who haven't been disappointing, I think because of the way they're all being asked to play, negatively and direct. Ba's scored goals but IMO he's not playing well at all. It's no good just pointing at goal statistics otherwise Darren Bent would be somewhere better than Aston Villa's bench.

 

We need to be looking at a way for our strikers to be getting far more chances instead of quibbling about which one feeds off scraps best.

I don't really know what you mean by his fault though?

 

Not sure why he won't answer this question.

 

His fault as in not a result of outside influences, but his own loss of form. Should we persevere with him? Yes we should, and we have/still are. Should we sacrifice results whilst he regains his form. That's where I draw the line. I'd sooner drop him and play him in the cups/Europe than playing him centrally in a 433 in this kind of hopeless form, that makes us as a team weaker defensively (first and foremost), whilst shipping our in form striker out of the team or playing him where he is nowhere as effective.

 

At the end of last season, I would have said it was Cisse's place to lose. As I've argued in another post on this page, I completely understand why Pardew wanted to try his tested 442 with 2 prolific strikers. It didn't work out. but now that we've learned this unfortunately for Papiss it's Ba's place to lose, as he has delivered while Cisse hasn't.

I'm all for him being benched by the way! I'd rather we played with balance, and brought Cisse on for Ba to play central, if Ba is having a bad game. He is horribly off-form and playing him anywhere except smack down the throat of the center backs is criminal and will not solve his or our problems.

What I am saying though, is that there is no doubt in my mind Cisse's loss of form is due to the combination of extenuating circumstances now known as "the excuses".

I don't really know what you mean by his fault though?

Not sure why he won't answer this question.

Playing out wide doesn't really excuse the kind of chances he's been missing though, like the one against City and the penalty he tried kicking into town.

 

I think it's got to be difficult when he's getting so few chances though, the fact that you're going all the way back to a penalty in September to think of chances he's missing is evidence of that. There's got to be a tendency to snatch at chances when your job is to score goals but you only get one half chance every three games.

 

 

Conversely, he did draw out a top class save from Hart in the first few minutes, and was a hair away from scoring at Fulham (pulled up for offside, replays showed he really wasn't). Apart from the chances that have been mentioned in the last couple of posts, has he really had any other real opportunities to score that he has squandered?

 

5 or 6 chances in 10 odd games is damning evidence of our complete lack of creativity for one of the most lethal finishers in the top division.

 

Even if your numbers were right, wouldn't you expect "one of the most lethal finishers in the top division" to put away 3 or maybe 4 out of those 5 or 6 chances in 10 odd games? That's before even going into the fact that Papiss Cisse is an integral part of that forward line that has, as you say a "complete lack of creativity". As I said, it's not just his finishing that's let him (and us) down, it's also his lack of intelligent movement.

 

Quite frankly, a lot of you are making excuses for him which wouldn't have been necessary if he had played anywhere near at the level we know from last season he's capable of.

 

Eh? So you're not factoring in his self confidence issues? Do you not think these make a difference to a center forward when he's faced with the first half chance he's had in 3 games let's say?

 

Look at it this way. Say Cisse played for Man Utd., with their current lineup. How many more chances per game would he be getting (on average), than he is getting at the moment? Do you think he would still be missing those chances, and with 2 goals to his name 4 and a half months into the season?

 

The fact that he can't get into any sort of rhythm up front because of all the chopping up, add to that an obviously massive bout of self-doubt, and our lack of creative variety in the final third, are the causes of his dry spell. He is however, responsible to work even harder, mentally especially, to adjust his game to the new role he finds himself in. He has shown a little more in the last couple of games, so maybe he is doing just that.

 

 

How does self confidence explain his p*ss poor start of the season after he was on fire in his first half season in a new league a few months earlier?

 

Also, all the excuses you make (lack of creativity, lack of chances created, lack of continuity in the team) don't detract from the fact Ba got 10 times as many goals when they were paired at the start of the season.

 

Is Papiss Cisse himself beyond criticism? Let me ask you this question: has he lived up to expectations these past couple of months?

Where did I say criticism is off-limits? I criticized him myself for not working hard enough to adjust to his new role for the benefit of the team. But that doesn't mean he is correctly utilized by the manager! We paid 9 million for a pure goal scorer, and we're playing him on the periphery of the areas where he is most dangerous.

What are you exactly asking for Cisse to do? "Score goals"? Are you saying that maybe his heart's not in it? If it's not a confidence issue or a team issue, what exactly is your reasoning behind his poor form, as I don't understand it.

Playing out wide doesn't really excuse the kind of chances he's been missing though, like the one against City and the penalty he tried kicking into town.

 

I think it's got to be difficult when he's getting so few chances though, the fact that you're going all the way back to a penalty in September to think of chances he's missing is evidence of that. There's got to be a tendency to snatch at chances when your job is to score goals but you only get one half chance every three games.

 

 

Conversely, he did draw out a top class save from Hart in the first few minutes, and was a hair away from scoring at Fulham (pulled up for offside, replays showed he really wasn't). Apart from the chances that have been mentioned in the last couple of posts, has he really had any other real opportunities to score that he has squandered?

 

5 or 6 chances in 10 odd games is damning evidence of our complete lack of creativity for one of the most lethal finishers in the top division.

 

Even if your numbers were right, wouldn't you expect "one of the most lethal finishers in the top division" to put away 3 or maybe 4 out of those 5 or 6 chances in 10 odd games? That's before even going into the fact that Papiss Cisse is an integral part of that forward line that has, as you say a "complete lack of creativity". As I said, it's not just his finishing that's let him (and us) down, it's also his lack of intelligent movement.

 

Quite frankly, a lot of you are making excuses for him which wouldn't have been necessary if he had played anywhere near at the level we know from last season he's capable of.

Eh? So you're not factoring in his self confidence issues? Do you not think these make a difference to a center forward when he's faced with the first half chance he's had in 3 games let's say?

Look at it this way. Say Cisse played for Man Utd., with their current lineup. How many more chances per game would he be getting (on average), than he is getting at the moment? Do you think he would still be missing those chances, and with 2 goals to his name 4 and a half months into the season?

The fact that he can't get into any sort of rhythm up front because of all the chopping up, add to that an obviously massive bout of self-doubt, and our lack of creative variety in the final third, are the causes of his dry spell. He is however, responsible to work even harder, mentally especially, to adjust his game to the new role he finds himself in. He has shown a little more in the last couple of games, so maybe he is doing just that.

His yellow against QPR was so avoidable. It's a shame he appears to be as thick as pigshit.

Couldn't believe how stupid and needless that foul was. And for him to remonstrate with the referee straight away shows he knew it was stupid the minute he'd fouled SWP. Starting to get really bored with his inability to control anything.

Having seen it now, imo Williams could have easily avoided the incident. He had plenty of time to see that RVP was on his way down by his feet and could have either given it a dink, kicked the air, or booted up high. You'd expect a professional footballer to make these decisions in the reaction times they have fairly easily.

He didn't mean to hurt him in that way probably, but clearly meant to kick the ball as hard as he could to show his frustration (petulance). Probably a yellow card in context, but definitely one to be looked at by the FA afterwards.

Playing out wide doesn't really excuse the kind of chances he's been missing though, like the one against City and the penalty he tried kicking into town.

 

I think it's got to be difficult when he's getting so few chances though, the fact that you're going all the way back to a penalty in September to think of chances he's missing is evidence of that. There's got to be a tendency to snatch at chances when your job is to score goals but you only get one half chance every three games.

Conversely, he did draw out a top class save from Hart in the first few minutes, and was a hair away from scoring at Fulham (pulled up for offside, replays showed he really wasn't). Apart from the chances that have been mentioned in the last couple of posts, has he really had any other real opportunities to score that he has squandered?

5 or 6 chances in 10 odd games is damning evidence of our complete lack of creativity for one of the most lethal finishers in the top division.

Can't read that Dave. Mind giving a summary?

Stupid question alert!

Any chance playing on the right could take away his goal scoring ability somewhat? His natural instinct will always be there I suppose, but what about confidence in his own movement and finishing ability? We've seen how players like Alan Smith who was a half decent striker only for that to be completely removed from his game.

Seeing as Sturridge is having his medical today, why can't we sign players now, most of our targets seem foreign and most of those leagues are on a winter break.

 

I know we just can't get them over the line, or get another body in the building. Get a new saying please Pardew the other two bullshitters have worn out mate.

 

Ashley spending money before they can actually play for us.

Papiss Cisse. January 2012.

He's already scored at Old Trafford once this season. Will do it again coming off the bench.

66 pts after bonuses, not a bad haul. Snodgrass, Begovic, Huth and Michu with the bonus pts.