themanupstairs

Ultimately it's about leadership. Do people think Pardew is a leader?

What we need most at this stage as a club is stability. Unless we are able to attract a proven manager of real calibre to take over this gig, we can't afford to keep making changes. Pardew is allowed a blip in results. Any manager is. I am as concerned, as everyone else here is, that he simply doesn't see the problems, or has no clue as to how to go about solving them. But we all know it takes a combination of factors to get things right again (in the same way that it has taken a combination of factors for things to go wrong). To me he never looked like he knew what he was doing up until we saw the team performance away at West Brom last season. He caught my attention with the home win against Man U, but I only started to see him as a potential "real deal" after that run that started at The Hawthorns. I'm in two minds. Part of me doesn't believe he's as good as we hoped. The other doesn't want to rock an already rocking ship. Nothing in life happens because of a single reason. There are always permutations and end results. At the moment it seems that everything is going against us, some things are his fault, some aren't. They say you become stronger and wiser when the going gets tough. Let's hope that we come out of this together as a club, owner, manager, players and fans.

What I'd give for an international break now

In amongst all the negativity, this guy remains a positive. His performances this season have been top notch. Getting closer to a goal now, and I hope once the first one goes in, he'll realize that he's well capable of chipping in with a few goals from LB.

Had his best spell in our colours last night, and then got taken off. Should have scored. I like him.

I love Jonas, but he's absolutely no use to a football club on the pitch. Anywhere. The downward spiral he has been on since joining has reached it's bottom pit. So sad to see him become the abomination of a footballer that he is at the moment.

And for the record I don't think he'll turn us around.

The ONLY good thing about losing and being utter shit is the hope that a managerial change will bring a change in fortunes. It's so depressing now because we can't even look forward to that. If Pardew does get sacked it won't be until the end of the season, and he's certainly going nowhere even then, if we stay up.

I'll say this now, and I'm sure I'll be saying the same thing at FT. We play like amateurs. We rush everything we do. Ultimately this has been the reason we can't string 2 passes together. We play the ball on the touchline SO MUCH that we don't use the whole pitch, and put the receiving players under unnecessary pressure. If we lose this, which we probably will, Pardew will have 3 consecutive losses to answer to.

We are pitiful to watch. I bet the Southampton fans can't believe there is a team above them as shit as ours. This isn't knee-jerk by any stretch, but Pardew clearly is out of his depth. Initially I thought of him as a motivator/organizer and not much else. We look as motivated as I was going to Sunday school as a youth. Pathetic from all 11 players out there. Tiote gives us a semblance of control in midfield, and I thought he and Anita had a good first few minutes. Apart from that we've been pathetic. Taylor and Krul have kept us in it.

Scraping the bottom of a barren barrel for positives here, and maybe with HBA out, they won't really have a target to mark out of the game. I'm probably talking bollocks, but it could make us a tad bit less predictable?

fyp

And @neilashton_ reporting that Harry Redknapp is already in place and ready to go as QPR manager - and he knows his stuff.

RDM?

The way we play football reminds me of the way my 5-a-side team plays on Monday nights. For 90 minutes we play as if it's the last 5 minutes of the game and we're a goal down. No matter whether it's 0-0, 1-0 to us, or whatever. For 90 minutes we're aiming to get the ball forward at a blistering pace, desperate to score with every punt and every knock down. If the punt and subsequent knockdown works per chance, we're immediately out wide and the player in possession is running towards the by-line, only to lose the ball somehow. We exercise no control over the ball or over the game. We're not patient in possession, and we hardly look up, hence rushing everything. You can't play proper 11-a-side football this way in a Sunday league game nevermind the top flight of English football, or against decent European sides.

i know that feel bro (cba to find the meme)

The players clearly don't train. and if they do, they probably train in silence, blindfolded, playing piggy in the middle for 2 hours before going for a jog around the block.

Thought Santon and Colo were our best players. The rest The main thing for me is that we don't move. So fucking static. We don't move to receive the ball for shit. Our midfield work is atrocious. Our players are forever chasing shadows. Utter utter rubbish.

We were abysmal. In other news, Liverpool were pegged back by young boys.

We must have put in about 25 crosses, one of which was good. Utter utter rubbish. I expected more from Fergie to tell the truth. Everyone knows he has a wicked left foot to put crosses in but 1) they were all s*** 2) he did f*** all else!! you're a professional footballer for f***'s sake! how can you not pass, get involved in the overall play? all he did was turn onto his left foot and put in one s*** cross after another. became so predictable and the full back nullified him. We really must not train during the week as there is zero evidence that we do. The team overall and the players look completely different to what we saw last season.

Ivanovic, Cole, McAuley and Routledge all not playing 6 out of 10 starting today, with Berbatov to come in tomorrow.

amazeballs

The absolute best natural talent the world has ever seen. No doubt. Needs to win a world cup though to surpass Maradona and Pele in terms of legendary status.

It's not about the 433 itself as a formation. It's about what gives our best attacking player, Ben Arfa, the best chance to hurt teams. I didn't mind him at all playing behind Ba for example as he did away to Man Utd last season. In fact I quite enjoyed watching him play more central, and I thought with a good run of games there he'd really flourish. As things stand, HBA is shackled, badly, in his current role, and I applaud him for continuing to track back and cover his defensive duties despite his frustrations. It's easy for a footballer like him these days to shrivel up and hoy the toys out. It's what is expected of him of course, being a professional and all. Something isn't going right somewhere, and I'm not sure Pardew can put his finger on it. The much famed "Team spirit" seems to have dissipated a bit compared to what we've seen in the last couple of seasons, and I believe it may have something to do with the transfer sagas of the summer (Agents, heads turned etc..) coupled with second season syndrome, injuries, suspensions, etc.. I hope this is just a phase, an exception, rather than the rule.