The Prophet

A football match is in danger of breaking out here.

Merson is an absolute mug. Having said that I've fancied us to get trounced all week, I'll give him that one.

Yes. He played there when he came on vs us Last 15-20 mins I can kinda understand (not really) BUT starting him there is just ridiculous You can? Please help me understand...

I still don't understand the whole 'well it's one mans word against anothers' argument when Suarez corroborated what was said.

I prefered him pulling the strings in behind the forwards. I think I'd cry if I were a Villa fan.

Rozenhal's at Lille?

I don't disagree but Spurs picked up possession deep in their own half. Santon was caught upfield, Colo was consequently pulled out wide to cover and Williamson got caught in two minds whether to track Saha or guard his near post and ended up doing neither. The space was there because the defence were so exposed.

The bottom five are completely cut adrift.

I do agree in parts, but we have had key players missing in all three games.

Aye was just about to say, really enjoyed it so far.

Possibly waiting to see where we finish before commiting himself?

Great goal. Wolves have Henessey to thank for keeping them in it though.

I've got some unrealistiic daft oneq uid accy on today including the likes of Villa/Man City both to score, Valecia-1, Villareal, Lille and PSG. I can't find it at the moment though.

As I said last night I wouldn’t read too much into this result, it was coming from a mile off. Perch and Guthrie are absolutely non-existent as a shielding force and predictably they were left chasing shadows against a world class midfielder in Modric. Pardew frequently talks at length about the defensive protection his wingers offer, neither were at the races yesterday, furthermore they both surrendered cheaply when they received the ball to feet. This meant the defense were always going to be on a hiding to nothing against a team who thrives on high tempo, pass and move football. Colo and Simpson in particular were dragged out of position numerous times trying to cover players the midfield had left untracked. When we actually had the ball we weren’t too bad. Guthrie was probably our best player in the final third while Santon and Cisse looked promising in parts. Ba was unusually poor, when we needed a forward who was going to hold up the ball and offer a bit of an outlet he attempted audacious pieces of skill or gifted the ball back with a misplaced pass. Given the problems described above I think Pardew was always going to struggle today. There’s little he could do about the unusually poor performance of Ba or the lack of defensive cover from the wingers who in fairness usually pull their weight. He could have gone with a five man midfield including Gosling or Abeid but I remember the same fixture last season where we went to White Lane to contain and he was absolutely slaughtered for it. Obviously we’ll benefit massively from the return of Tiote and Cabaye. In my mind at least there’s no way we’d of suffered a hiding like that with the pair of them at our disposal.

You're guessing nine? In other words you can't think of a goal that's cost us a game that he's directly responsible for so you'll pull a number out of thin air and go with it? Yes I'd like to see Simpson replaced eventually but once agian his flaws are being massively exaggerated on a day the whole defensive unit were all over the place.

How many points has his mistakes cost us? I don't know, how many?

How many points has he saved us from goal line clearances this season? Clueless.

Palacios modelling the cave man look.

Bollocks. I'd be furious if one of our players hadn't of done the same.

Unsure why people are singling Simpson out in what was a horrid display from the entire defence.

We've not been out of the top seven all season. We were a Championship side two years ago. Kindly go and boil your head. Move on , we have bought well and have better players than two years ago, and a couple of years before we drop into the Championship , we were in Europe. Football changes and teams improve or fall off. Stop using that as an excuse, how many freaking years must we be out of the Championship before we can claim we can improve and be hoping for better. Unless you're Man City/Chelsea it takes a while to build a squad capable of consistently finishing in the top six. The fact we're even competing a mere year and half follwoing a promotion is a testament to how well Pardew is doing. The season hasn't ended lets see where we finish before the victory laps, i am more focus on how we are performing on the pitch. As i said in another thread is it Ridiculously to congratulate or give credit to Pardew before the end of the season. For now the credit he deserves is keeping us from being relegated and nothing more. Where do you think we'll finish? The fact we're merely competing for the top six shows what a great job he's doing. 1/3 of the season still to go, base on the football we are playing we wont be in the top 6 imo. Sorry i rate some of the players but not how Pardew translates it on the pitch , what if we ended the season 10,9,8?? how can you give credit to someone before the competition ends? Maybe if there are 5 to 3 matches to go and we have a good tally, i will be more comfortable in assuming where we would be but before all the celebrations, No one is due credit. Challenging/competing means nothing if the end results doesnt correlate to our final standing Who's celebrating/assuming where we're going to finish like? We've had a great season thus far, Pardew deserves credit for that, if we finish badly he'll deserve criticism. Sorry but there is a bigger picture than that. We are not playing well, we have not played well for a majority of this season and even worse during 2012. Results are falling our way with luck and when they aren't we are getting trashed like 5-2 to Fulham, 5-0 to Spurs and also the loss to Brighton. I would put a lot of this down to missing key players if it wasn't for us having not played well for a very large part of the season, ever since the Man City game we have had problem getting back on that horse and we have not played particularly well apart from the Man U game. I mean we have beaten Bolton, QPR, Man U, Blackburn and Villa since our first loss of the season against City. And all of them except Man U have been scrappy lucky wins where we werent really confidently deserving of three points. You simply don't amass 42 points due to luck, before today we'd won five from seven. We're a hard working, well drilled side who has just won two of there last three games with a Championship midfield. Now you take that into account, look what had happened have we not rode luck there and we wouldnt be anywhere near where we are. So your argument is simply: We are where are due to luck and no other factor? League is weaker than ever this season and we are taking advantage of it with individual brilliance and luck as well as other teams being real s***. By no imagination are we anywhere near the standard required to be playing European football. We have a great XI but our tactics have been poor and we look nowhere near as good as we did at the beginning of the season. Dont get blind by the results, look at our football and our tactics, they have been pisspoor for a while now. Statictically the league is no weaker than it was last season, nor the year before. If we're sixth come the end of the season we'll deserve European football, simple as that. I agree we haven't been playing our best stuff of late but we have been grinding out results with five first team regulars missing. A lot of my criticism for Pardew is that we havent been good enough since our first loss. Our 5 wins since then have been in my opinion lucky/underserving (excl. Man U). 11games unbeaten run was great but since then we have been very poor in general and Pardew hasnt tried to adress that in the right manner or been successful. My criticism is because of that. Results are not reflecting our performances fortunately enough. So you think luck has been the only factor in winning five of our last eight? We've not played brilliantly I agree but we're organised, we're hard working and we know how to close out a game, that's down to Pardew. He's done even better when you consider some of the absentees we've had of late and their respective replacements.

Oh so you're the fan who'd rather lose 4-3 than win 1-0, I was starting to think it was just a media stereotype. Edit: Aimed at Dontooner.

We've not been out of the top seven all season. We were a Championship side two years ago. Kindly go and boil your head. Move on , we have bought well and have better players than two years ago, and a couple of years before we drop into the Championship , we were in Europe. Football changes and teams improve or fall off. Stop using that as an excuse, how many freaking years must we be out of the Championship before we can claim we can improve and be hoping for better. Unless you're Man City/Chelsea it takes a while to build a squad capable of consistently finishing in the top six. The fact we're even competing a mere year and half follwoing a promotion is a testament to how well Pardew is doing. The season hasn't ended lets see where we finish before the victory laps, i am more focus on how we are performing on the pitch. As i said in another thread is it Ridiculously to congratulate or give credit to Pardew before the end of the season. For now the credit he deserves is keeping us from being relegated and nothing more. Where do you think we'll finish? The fact we're merely competing for the top six shows what a great job he's doing. 1/3 of the season still to go, base on the football we are playing we wont be in the top 6 imo. Sorry i rate some of the players but not how Pardew translates it on the pitch , what if we ended the season 10,9,8?? how can you give credit to someone before the competition ends? Maybe if there are 5 to 3 matches to go and we have a good tally, i will be more comfortable in assuming where we would be but before all the celebrations, No one is due credit. Challenging/competing means nothing if the end results doesnt correlate to our final standing Who's celebrating/assuming where we're going to finish like? We've had a great season thus far, Pardew deserves credit for that, if we finish badly he'll deserve criticism. Sorry but there is a bigger picture than that. We are not playing well, we have not played well for a majority of this season and even worse during 2012. Results are falling our way with luck and when they aren't we are getting trashed like 5-2 to Fulham, 5-0 to Spurs and also the loss to Brighton. I would put a lot of this down to missing key players if it wasn't for us having not played well for a very large part of the season, ever since the Man City game we have had problem getting back on that horse and we have not played particularly well apart from the Man U game. I mean we have beaten Bolton, QPR, Man U, Blackburn and Villa since our first loss of the season against City. And all of them except Man U have been scrappy lucky wins where we werent really confidently deserving of three points. You simply don't amass 42 points due to luck, before today we'd won five from seven. We're a hard working, well drilled side who has just won two of there last three games with a Championship midfield. Now you take that into account, look what had happened have we not rode luck there and we wouldnt be anywhere near where we are. So your argument is simply: We are where are due to luck and no other factor? League is weaker than ever this season and we are taking advantage of it with individual brilliance and luck as well as other teams being real s***. By no imagination are we anywhere near the standard required to be playing European football. We have a great XI but our tactics have been poor and we look nowhere near as good as we did at the beginning of the season. Dont get blind by the results, look at our football and our tactics, they have been pisspoor for a while now. Statictically the league is no weaker than it was last season, nor the year before. If we're sixth come the end of the season we'll deserve European football, simple as that. I agree we haven't been playing our best stuff of late but we have been grinding out results with five first team regulars missing.

We've not been out of the top seven all season. We were a Championship side two years ago. Kindly go and boil your head. Move on , we have bought well and have better players than two years ago, and a couple of years before we drop into the Championship , we were in Europe. Football changes and teams improve or fall off. Stop using that as an excuse, how many freaking years must we be out of the Championship before we can claim we can improve and be hoping for better. Unless you're Man City/Chelsea it takes a while to build a squad capable of consistently finishing in the top six. The fact we're even competing a mere year and half follwoing a promotion is a testament to how well Pardew is doing. The season hasn't ended lets see where we finish before the victory laps, i am more focus on how we are performing on the pitch. As i said in another thread is it Ridiculously to congratulate or give credit to Pardew before the end of the season. For now the credit he deserves is keeping us from being relegated and nothing more. Where do you think we'll finish? The fact we're merely competing for the top six shows what a great job he's doing. 1/3 of the season still to go, base on the football we are playing we wont be in the top 6 imo. Sorry i rate some of the players but not how Pardew translates it on the pitch , what if we ended the season 10,9,8?? how can you give credit to someone before the competition ends? Maybe if there are 5 to 3 matches to go and we have a good tally, i will be more comfortable in assuming where we would be but before all the celebrations, No one is due credit. Challenging/competing means nothing if the end results doesnt correlate to our final standing Who's celebrating/assuming where we're going to finish like? We've had a great season thus far, Pardew deserves credit for that, if we finish badly he'll deserve criticism. What a strange way of looking at it. I save all my opinion and emotional response until the end of the season when I can put it into context. That's when I perform my 40-minute interpretive dance: 1 minute dedicated to expressing my thoughts and feelings on each game and the final two-minute finale which serves as my summary of my opinion on the season as a whole and Pardew's reign to date. Be there. What I mean is even if we finish the season badly he'll still deserve some form of credit for the first 24 games and the fact we've been punching well above our weight for two thirds of the season now. Didn't express myself very well in that first comment.

We've not been out of the top seven all season. We were a Championship side two years ago. Kindly go and boil your head. Move on , we have bought well and have better players than two years ago, and a couple of years before we drop into the Championship , we were in Europe. Football changes and teams improve or fall off. Stop using that as an excuse, how many freaking years must we be out of the Championship before we can claim we can improve and be hoping for better. Unless you're Man City/Chelsea it takes a while to build a squad capable of consistently finishing in the top six. The fact we're even competing a mere year and half follwoing a promotion is a testament to how well Pardew is doing. The season hasn't ended lets see where we finish before the victory laps, i am more focus on how we are performing on the pitch. As i said in another thread is it Ridiculously to congratulate or give credit to Pardew before the end of the season. For now the credit he deserves is keeping us from being relegated and nothing more. Where do you think we'll finish? The fact we're merely competing for the top six shows what a great job he's doing. 1/3 of the season still to go, base on the football we are playing we wont be in the top 6 imo. Sorry i rate some of the players but not how Pardew translates it on the pitch , what if we ended the season 10,9,8?? how can you give credit to someone before the competition ends? Maybe if there are 5 to 3 matches to go and we have a good tally, i will be more comfortable in assuming where we would be but before all the celebrations, No one is due credit. Challenging/competing means nothing if the end results doesnt correlate to our final standing Who's celebrating/assuming where we're going to finish like? We've had a great season thus far, Pardew deserves credit for it, if we finish badly he'll deserve criticism for it.