Hughesy

I could give you plenty of championship and league 1 strikers who can hold up the ball decently. Go on then. Then also tell me how many of them have scored goals in the Premiership and how their goalscoring record compares to Shola's in the Championship.

Not quite sure people are downplaying the ability to hold the ball up well. It's a skill and not a skill that all players have - so all this talk of it being the bare minimum we should expect is, quite frankly, nonsense.

Why not? All profit is profit and Ba held all the cards when he moved here when he could've gone anywhere. If true and I've no idea if it is it was probably one of the key reasons he accepted the relatively low wage/performance based contract that he did. For example - http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/West-Ham-transfer-news-Demba-Ba-contract-demands-of-4million-per-year-putting-off-Everton-Sunderland-and-Newcastle-article744417.html Don't think Ba did hold all the cards to be honest. No-one was going pay him anywhere near what he wanted with his knee - any contract he would have got in the summer would have been heavily performance related. I just don't think that we would have agreed to give him c.35% of a minimum fee release clause and pay him quite a hefty wage into the bargain.

I don't really believe it to be honest: We paid his agent £2 million. We gave him a clause meaning he could leave for £7million. We gave him a clause meaning that he would get £2.5 million of that £7 milion. He is on £35k a week basic with a £20k appearance fee. Doesn't sound like an Ashley deal to me. Can't believe that he would have held that much negotiating power.

Factor in the £2million in agent's fees and we are left with... not very much.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/newcastle-united/9003471/Manchester-United-and-Tottenham-Hotspur-lead-chase-for-Newcastle-Uniteds-in-form-striker-Demba-Ba.html?

I remember going to Portsmouth when Lua Lua was playing for them and heard some disgusting racist abuse aimed at Lua Lua from 2 guys behind me. I turned round and kept staring at them (with hindsight it would have been easier to say something, but never mind). One of them kept asking me if I had a problem and becoming pretty 'threatening'. Once I pointed out the nearby police officers they quickly stopped, but it wasn't great having them behind me for the rest of the match.

Robert's against Southampton was pretty spectacular.

Even better free kick than Solano's against Leeds I reckon.

Dwight Yorke's punditry was a disgrace. He just won't admit that it should have been a penalty despite all the evidence showing that it was. Something about Ferdinand being favourite to getting the ball and therefore it couldn't be a foul...?

Played well today.

Looked great tonight.

No lose situation for them really. Everyone will forget if we do well. If we do bad, they can enjoy it and give it 'told you so'. Pathetic. Are yee for f***ing real? Yep. genuinely feel sorry for you if that's all you can feel after a huge win. what a clown. Think this was Pardew's biggest win so far - we've not seen the huge kind of performances we saw under Hughton with Pardew as boss - so it's great to finally see us come out of the blocks at 100mph, put in a massive performance and intimidate the bigger team. Eh?? I'm delighted about it. Not sure how that makes me a clown. Also love seeing Pardew shut some people up who seem out to denigrate him at every chance.

No lose situation for them really. Everyone will forget if we do well. If we do bad, they can enjoy it and give it 'told you so'. Pathetic. Are yee for f***ing real? Yep.

No lose situation for them really. Everyone will forget if we do well. If we do bad, they can enjoy it and give it 'told you so'. Pathetic.

Let's hear the doubters again.

Overreactions? On here?? Never.

I think people say this every time he plays for the sole reason of contributing to my heart problems. We'll see! I just have a feeling he might put himself about a bit.

I think we might get a decent performance out of Shola today..

Nobody will pay us anything close to what a lot of us agree he's worth. Circa £6m? I just can't see it. A Turkish side perhaps, but I don't think he'd want that. Could see him going for £3.2m-ish. Quite precise - sure it wouldn't be £3.25m? ;-)

since this is is a thread about the manager...i expected us to put our best players on the pitch with a game plan that suits them. this hasnt been the case for months now. Think months is a bit of an exaggeration. I do have issues with Pardew's team selection and tactics (although tactics-wise I am not as convinced as everyone else that Pardew has instructed the players to play long ball, I just think we have some average players who can't play any other way), but some of the comments about Pardew are way over the top.

Some fantastic overreactions in here. As usual. I genuinely don't know what people expected to happen this season, but on any level we have to be ahead of where most people expected us to be. Yes, we are in danger of throwing away our good work and that is immensely frustrating, but did anyone really think we were going to maintain a top 6 challenge all season? That would have been a minor miracle. As it stands we are going through a bad patch, but we are still in 7th. Personally I think we will manage to hold onto 7th and that would have to represent a good season for us at this stage. Looking at the teams above us and their levels of investment and the years that they have been entrenched in the top 6, I can't believe anyone would think we 'should' be taking them on and beating them. At least not at the moment. Expectations have risen ridiculously high on here. Pardew would almost have been better off not doing so well at the start of the season with the way people are now expecting us to perform.

Still don't get why Krul didn't just disregard Simpson and save it. Who cares if Simpson gets a clattering? At least we could then have Santon in the team anyway.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01389/eric-cantona_1389972c.jpg Bergkamp n all. If you've the talent to make things happen from nothing for the good of the team then running around like a blue arsed fly is not of importance. It's the classic northern European issue, preferring braun and effort over ability and nous. Whilst I appreciate what you are saying, I think the idea that all UK teams prefer a hard worker to a skilful player has become a bit of a cliche in itself. It is perfectly possible and, in my opinion, desirable to have a playmaker who is brilliant on the ball but also puts the effort in for the team. Take Beardsley for example - he chased and harried with the best of them but was also a genius when he got the ball. If it's good enough for Beardsley, it is certainly good enough for Ben Arfa.

Incredibly annoying re the striker. Don't think there is any excuse for not being able to sign an additional striker within a year. The excuses don't add up anymore. Having said that - I think we need a CB and a LB more - so if somehow we ended up getting a decent CB and an LB, I would accept us not buying a striker now.