Jayson

Ben Arfa was the main issue. Him not being on the pitch & us not playing fluid attacking football was just enough for many to believe Pards couldnt take us forwards. The defensive strength he'd given us in being hard to beat, simply isnt as exciting to watch & was largely disregarded. Even though that & Ba's goals were largely the reason we'd gotten to 6th in the first place. Understandable to an extent, we all want to enjoy our football aswell as get points it just went OTT.

Video at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17810301

Its not pointscoring or anyone trying to claim to be saviour of the season though. Point is the criticism was massively OTT & that it can be learnt from. Luckily this season it went well & Pards changed to the more attacking style of play everyone wanted after the Norwich game. Many wouldnt have wanted to give him the chance to do it next season though if he'd not managed to do it now & i dont see the level of criticism he was getting as being beneficial to us if it was to be spread around by sections of our support or grown moreso before the next season had started. This season should have been a lesson in patience & holding back on strong judgements for all of us in general.

Spot on as usual. There have been a lot of valid criticisms and discussion points, it never got daft barring a very few exceptions. In fact I actually think this has been one of the best threads this season because nearly all of the content was well balanced and argued. Despite our results and position, Pardew had questions asked about his selections, tactics and style of play (some of which were prompted by his own comments in the media) and he has answered them emphatically in the run-in. Dunno why some are so preoccupied with point-scoring. I think you're underplaying the level of criticism he was getting at times. You only have to go back to the Norwich game we won & Cisse missed two sitters in: http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,72878.21275.html You can count 4 or 5 different people suggesting he shouldnt even be our manager within the first 3 pages after a game we won to keep us in 6th man. It was ludicrous stuff. Only a few of us were actually backing him up at that point, the majority were not. The media will take any excuse to raise the idea of discontentment amongst our fans, let alone when we're doing well. If the criticism had gotten stronger & been held by more, you dont think that could have affected our season? I think it could have. Woah, 4 or 5 people suggesting stuff. How harsh. We were f***ing awful in that game, that's a fact. At no point were people seriously calling for him to be sacked, and that includes at the ground. There's also a post from you suggesting we can't play football with Williamson in the side btw and that 'Its got nowt to do with Pardew'. I guess it's nowt to do with Pardew that we've played some brilliant stuff in the last few games with the same players on the park then? Be serious. The poll at that time had around a third of people voting that hed been less than "good" It was many more than 4 or 5, though that should have been obvious. As i say you're downplaying it, probably because you had a similar viewpoint. The first half of that game we werent awful, some people said it was the best attacking football we'd played all season at one point of that half. After wasting chances & the pressure built they came back into it....and we held on to win. Like we nearly always had every other time to get points on the board in a similar manner. Where do i say we cant play football with williamson? I said he does it through choice, not tactical approach. You didnt answer my question anyway, you dont think that could have affected our season if more people had made those views known as strongly as on here?

Spot on as usual. There have been a lot of valid criticisms and discussion points, it never got daft barring a very few exceptions. In fact I actually think this has been one of the best threads this season because nearly all of the content was well balanced and argued. Despite our results and position, Pardew had questions asked about his selections, tactics and style of play (some of which were prompted by his own comments in the media) and he has answered them emphatically in the run-in. Dunno why some are so preoccupied with point-scoring. I think you're underplaying the level of criticism he was getting at times. You only have to go back to the Norwich game we won & Cisse missed two sitters in: http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,72878.21275.html You can count 4 or 5 different people suggesting he shouldnt even be our manager within the first 3 pages after a game we won to keep us in 6th man. It was ludicrous stuff. Only a few of us were actually backing him up at that point, the majority were not. The media will take any excuse to raise the idea of discontentment amongst our fans, let alone when we're doing well. If the criticism had gotten stronger & been held by more, you dont think that could have affected our season? I think it could have.

That is one thing that annoys me, it almost seems like a criticism or at least a patronising pat of the back that our performances have gotten better (despite us doing well all season) 'Well at least he has finally seen the light..'. This is whats laughable about it. Its no new thing, this isnt the first time Gutierrez has been played centrally this season. Best was tried in Ba's current position. We played defensively largely to cover our weakest point (defence) after Saylor was injured as Ba was doing the business upfront and the combination of that was producing results. As soon as he left for ACON Pards changed it we went more attacking against Fulham specifically because we didnt have someone to rely on to score individually so had to change overall mentality. The signs of Pardew being flexible to approaches was always there. Realistically many just didnt see it & now are making excuses for that tbh. There were two POV in regards to Pards a couple months ago & one of them has largely been proven right at this point. Simple as for me.

Class

Must be on a wind up

what in the balls

Roonpig.com doin the business

Carroll atleast has the excuse that it was the money for him that afforded much of our current side, so he wouldnt have been involved in it anyway. For Enrique its just been an utter disaster Supposedly leaves to improve his profile, get noticed & in the national side, Champions league football. Even explains how we'll never challenge the top 6 again with our current policy on leaving. Ends up playing in goal against us while we challenge for the top 4, pure magic.

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=292500.520 Just reading the general results forum on there, absolute horror when it was suggested Pardew is a better manager than Dalgish Their Carling Cup achievement outweighs our success apparently. Still find it hilarious that earlier in the season they were willing us to beat sides, due to their massively patronising perception that we would clearly drop away as our players were nowhere near as good as theirs.

47.1% now. Change the title, lots have probably skimmed over the thread. Everyone loves a quick vote.

So also our 14th Clean sheet yesterday, as pointed out the other day equalling our best result ever in the prem in a 38 game season under Sir Bobby Lot of plaudits rightly going to our attacking play atm, but you consider we could've had 6 in a row now if not for that Krul/Williamson mix up vs Wbrom. Phenomenal stuff. Its not just going forwards we've hit this form. Hes made us incredibly hard to beat all season, a clear theme has been that if we score twice in a game we'll nearly always win bar pens/luck. Thats what managed to rack up the points, perhaps not always enthralling to watch but very efficient if you have someone who can do the business upfront like Ba had been. Hes now brought Ben Arfa in, used some imagination with formations & created a whole new attacking dimension now added onto our understanding & solidity at the back & the combination of the two is outstanding. I predicted we'd win 7 from our last 10 before Norwich due to this (smug as about this btw ) and theyre surpassing even that atm. Had pool as a draw. The way its come together & its falling for other teams...who knows what we can do. Sir Bobby would be proud. Love this team. Well in Pards !!

Just get it round all the newc forums, only needs to go up another 8.8%

1 more clean sheet will equal our 2nd best ever CS record in the prem under Sir bobby & 2 more our best in the prem under Keegan with 15 in 1993. Pretty outstanding. Given the injury to Saylor & the fullbacks he needed to make step up.

sorted

Our future form was predictable before Norwich game btw : Since: 1-0, 3-1, 2-0, 2-0, 2-0 (no pens/deflected goals). Cisse has just replaced Ba's form. Since 5 wins from 10. Pool win was a suprise, so we should be on for 8 hopefully.

The little bits we saw this season were absolute class, assists for fun. Excited about him, great control on the ball & should be inspired by our season. Just get him/keep him fit for next season now. As slowly as needed.

More Pardew praise in that 2nd le10sport link

Well todays just been mint like. Cheers demps

This is so so good man. Magical being a newc fan right now, loving it. Joint 4th holy moly!

This is so so good man. Magical being a newc fan right now, loving it

YESSS GET IN YOU ABSOLUTE BEAUTY!!

Absolute quality man