Interpolic

Looked a bit like this...

Yep. Should have at the very least spoke to the supporters first thing this morning. I do find it strange like - he likes a bit chat normally, does Alan.

By the looks of the responses of some people in here, I guess I'm wrong. I honestly don't think he's done that amazing a job on the pitch. The second half of last season was not nearly as bad as I'd feared but it's hardly something that I'd call progress. There were some fucking minging performances after he arrived imo, and we drew far too many games which seemed to paper over the cracks somewhat. We have 7 points from the first 3 games and I'm absolutely delighted with that, but truth be told we haven't played that well yet. I do think he's doing an OK job under the circumstances as it happens, but when people mention 'on the pitch' stuff with Pardew you'd have thought we'd came on leaps and bounds under his leadership. On field he gets a 6 from me, off field a 2 or a 3. As a person, I cannot stand him.

I agree that changing the manager this season is the one thing that will likely see us in relegation trouble, but look at the circumstances in which Pardew arrived. Plucked from the League 1 scrapheap and given a 5 and a half year contract - I find it difficult to believe that he's not aware that he'll have to feed the fans bullshit on a regular basis, or even if you're being kind to him that he didn't have an inkling that he couldn't take what MA and DL said at face value. As I say though, I agree that him leaving any time soon would probably be disastrous. It's a depressing state of affairs.

Just read Keefaz's latest comments, pffffffft. #badgekissinghelmet

We'll sell him to Liverpool From selfless martyr to geordie Roberto Carlos to Judas cunt in a few short steps, unlucky Keefaz.

I'm with you but it really does depend - you could hoy a 16 year old from the reserves in at left back for the next 10 games and it could completely destroy his confidence if he wasn't 'ready'. I'm happy for the 2 mentioned to be introduced as subs for the next few games and we see where we go from there. There's really no need to be playing Lovenkrands at all at the minute anyway as it should be Ba/Best/Shola battling for 1 or 2 forward positions with the kids providing cover for the time being. Fair enough. I think Sammy should have been coming on instead of Smith at the weekend though. Smith shouldn't be anywhere near our squad. As much as people moan about players like Lovenkrands and Ryan Taylor, Smith cannot do anything whatsoever anymore and it's generally detrimental to have him on the pitch. God knows where Gosling and Guthrie were - if it was down to niggling injuries then we really need to sort it out as they're both streets ahead of Smith. So you won't find me disagreeing, but I think Pardew just wanted to bring another midfielder on and wasn't willing to take Vuckic off for a forward.

If Keefaz scores, we're on the pitch If Keefaz scores, we're on the pitch

I'm with you but it really does depend - you could hoy a 16 year old from the reserves in at left back for the next 10 games and it could completely destroy his confidence if he wasn't 'ready'. I'm happy for the 2 mentioned to be introduced as subs for the next few games and we see where we go from there. There's really no need to be playing Lovenkrands at all at the minute anyway as it should be Ba/Best/Shola battling for 1 or 2 forward positions with the kids providing cover for the time being.

We actually have an embarrassment of riches in that position when you think about it. Seriously though, if Vuckic and Sammy Ameobi are deemed 'ready' enough then it would be stupid not to give them minutes in the circumstances we're in at the minute.

Eh? Re: Ashley being an idiot for not checking the books, etc, mixed in with a fair bit of sarcasm. Thank fuck for that.

Eh?

It's hardly as big a deal as the fact that there's no fucker willing to pay the £300m or so that we'd cost (incorporating Ashley's debt) as we're just not worth that amount of money.

Yep.

For fuck's sake. Just seen this. Gannin to bed, what a smashing day. Making your stadium look like a tatty mess while also not spending a fucking penny in the transfer market over the course of 4 years, just get the fuck out. Arseholes. You could almost accept it if we were spending money to improve the side, but they're getting away with having it both ways. So sick of it now.

We've acquired a good striker, we just needed another. Exactly, and the second striker only became our biggest priority after we secured a good fullback as well. Don't get me wrong, I wanted another striker, but it had to be one whose quality was way above the ones we've got. That always made it harder to achieve, especially under the frugal spending limits we've set ourselves. Completely disagree with that mind. The only reason Santon was the biggest priority was that we'd left it until the last few days without a single left back in the entire squad. Unless you count right-sided utility player Ryan Taylor or youngster coming back from an injury (who's arguably a winger) Shane Ferguson. A forward besides Ba has been a huge priority for months and months, to suggest that our negligence of the left back position (when we knew for months what would have happened with Enrique) is a crazy piece of logic, I find it incredible that you're actually saying that. Also what you're saying about Europe is depressing tbh Ian. Birmingham and Stoke are in the Europa League this season, as a result of the cups. We'll most likely find ourselves having to play shite teams in the cups and will get knocked out fairly early again as usual, which wouldn't necessarily be the case if we'd make 1 or 2 more additions, and/or indeed kept the likes of Nolan and Barton as members of the squad. Will be a case of staying in the league and fucking off the cups yet again. In other words, simply existing. Simply existing is the reality for most clubs in the league, it now takes insane investment to compete at the top. I don't think what I said about Europe is depressing, I'm saying we can reach it but just not yet. You're right that we kind of got ourselves into the situation with the LB position by not sorting out Enrique earlier, but who knows what was going on. I can't really blame the club for trying to sign him if they thought there was a chance he might stay, or maybe no decent bids came in until Liverpool's. However it came about, there was a problem and we addressed it with Santon (hopefully). If your argument is that Birmingham can win the cup but we can't, I don't agree with that. We were much better than Birmingham last season, if they can win it then so can we. Not sure I'd want to trade it for another relegation, but that's impossible to measure anyway. The point is that it would not have taken insane investment to move up a few places and have a decent cup run. There's also an argument to be had for Birmingham's cup run negatively affecting their league campaign - it's happened to other clubs in the past such as Blackburn, Middlesbrough, even Fulham when they reached the UEFA cup final ended up finishing a lot of places further down than they did the year previous, without getting into relegation trouble. We can't afford to do that - we're in a position where if Colo and Best (FFS!) got injured we'd have real problems at either end, especially if Ben Arfa, Gosling and Marveaux's injury problems continue to drag on / they're not the same players as they were.

We've acquired a good striker, we just needed another. Exactly, and the second striker only became our biggest priority after we secured a good fullback as well. Don't get me wrong, I wanted another striker, but it had to be one whose quality was way above the ones we've got. That always made it harder to achieve, especially under the frugal spending limits we've set ourselves. Completely disagree with that mind. The only reason Santon was the biggest priority was that we'd left it until the last few days without a single left back in the entire squad. Unless you count right-sided utility player Ryan Taylor or youngster coming back from an injury (who's arguably a winger) Shane Ferguson. A forward besides Ba has been a huge priority for months and months, to suggest that our negligence of the left back position (when we knew for months what would have happened with Enrique) rightfully put the striker search on the back-burner is a crazy piece of logic, I find it incredible that you're actually saying that. Also what you're saying about Europe is depressing tbh Ian. Birmingham and Stoke are in the Europa League this season, as a result of the cups. We'll most likely find ourselves having to play shite teams in the cups and will get knocked out fairly early again as usual, which wouldn't necessarily be the case if we'd make 1 or 2 more additions, and/or indeed kept the likes of Nolan and Barton as members of the squad. Will be a case of staying in the league and fucking off the cups yet again. In other words, simply existing.

A lot depends on Ben Arfa now imo, him coming in and hitting the ground running as part of a front 2 is the only thing I can see that could improve us. We have to hope to God we get lucky with injuries at the back as well or else we're knackered. More reasons why it's not good enough really.

:weep: It's fucking ridiculous like.

Well put. You could match up Elliott with Forster as well.

£600k net spend and we've managed to bring in Cabaye, Ba, Marveaux, Abeid, Elloitt & Santon. That's canny good in my view. All well and true, but it's not about that, is it? Exactly, it's about the other money we could have used to strengthen, instead of doing the bare minimum for £660k. Cunts Well, I'm happy with what we have managed to sign. Seemed most people were yesterday too when the Santon news broke. Not going to get angry about something that hasn't happened, and let that distract from the good we have managed this window. Unless, of course, people were waiting for a 'Trophy Signing'? Anything over the magic £10m marker seems to get people really excited, even if they don't know much about the player (Ruiz). Tbh I am a bit pissed off we've only spent £600k this summer. I am. We never spend more than we take in on transfer fees, and even this summer with the Carroll money we've spent coppers. As I said earlier, I'm just delighted we signed Santon (and that's the main thing since we had not one left back in the fucking squad) but the fact they're settling on our current forwards is pathetic. So tight and incompetent.

OK then fellas. Free transfers?

Craig confirms both deals aren't happening.

44 minutes left ffs! Yeah. Does anyone know where Tiote is atm for sure?