Hughesy

So that's your basis for writing off this season? It's my basis for stating that next season will be the best time to judge him. He had a good half season when he took over, followed up by an exceptionally good season. He has had a poor season to date. That is enough to give him next season to see how he gets on.

How the hell does this season not prove anything at all? Well enough people appear to think that finishing 5th didn't prove anything...

I wasn't suggesting Pards will ever be as good or even close to as good as Ferguson. My point was merely that even the greatest managers had points in their career where they could, justifiably, have been judged to be doing a bad job.

Next season will be the one where Pardew can be truly judged in my opinion. My point is that this season doesn't prove anything at all.

When Ferguson finished 11th and 13th with Man Utd... did that prove he would never be a top manager? I am interested to know what formula you use. He won loads before he went there. These examples never hold up. He'd won a lot in Scotland - yes. Not sure how that makes the example irrelevant. I'm just intrigued to know how a bad season from Pardew 'proves' he won't be a top manager. This season 'proves' nothing. It's a nonsense statement.

When Ferguson finished 11th and 13th with Man Utd... did that prove he would never be a top manager? I am interested to know what formula you use.

Please be true..

brilliant penalty.

This might be regarded as somewhat insensitive, but is there any particular reason why West Ham were commemorating the 20th anniversary of Bobby Moore's death? Do they do it every 10 years? Do any other clubs do the same thing for the deaths of their legends?

He really is brilliant.

Strangely I think he has played a bit better over the last few games. Prepared for no-one to agree with me on this one though.

For some, such is their dislike for Pardew or their belief that he is a bad manager or a combination of the two, that whatever Pardew ends up achieving, they will always state that a 'better' manager would achieved more. It is a very useful argument to be able to fall back on as it can't really be disproved.

You are just showing off that you are sat in first class.

Oh yeah...

Very very good goal. Played well so far.

Looks good so far. Confident on the ball.

Yeah that's right lets just throw in back in and risk re-inury with a notoriously difficult area to treat. Do you not think they're desperate for him to play as he brings so much to the side. The lad hasn't played full speed competetive football for months, they have to be 100% sure he's ready. My guess is he'll make the bench on sunday but you throwing some predictable slant at Pardew over this is fairly predictable of someone who hasn't thought this through properly. Pardew doesn't just pull decisions out of the air, there's a whole team monitoring HBA's fitness/strength and if he isn't ready he isn't ready. Don't come on here and make sensible posts..

Absolutely. The assumption that you give a manager X number of years and he then produces is a bit daft. Fergie was given time, because it was plain he WAS getting there at Man U. Not every manager will produce if you're patient. Sometimes you're only prolonging the inevitable It wasn't clear that Ferguson was getting there at all.

I thought he was absolutely fine last night. Not vintage Tiote, but certainly good enough.

Yup when Robert was here, many (not me) were complaining on his corners and free kicks when they don't work out. Now that we don't have him or someone with his ability, people are saying how good they were. I had no problems with him taking on those shots, because when it did worked, it was a thing of beauty and that's what football is about, having memorable moments. Hate it when we just lump the ball with no direction from a corner and just hoping someone would attack it. Since we don't train (enough) on set pieces, everyone just stand around when a corner is taken. The weird thing is that Pardew acknowledged that this was one of our weaknesses and yet has done nothing to address it, which suggest to me that he has no clue on what needs to be done! I almost think Robert's tactic of smacking it from 40 yards or whatever when the free kick was in a central area of the pitch made more sense than trying to create an angle and corss it (despite having some great players in the air at that point). If you've got a wall and a crowded box, the keeper is unsighted, the ball might get a deflection and fall to one of your players or go in.

I don't think he could have done much more with the header really. He had to generate all the power himself (think Shearer's goal vs Germany in the Euros) and he put it in the right place.

Not sure how many tackles people think are made a match, but I suspect people are overestimating the statistic.

Isn't he Mark Walters?

Yeah - there was one bloke behind me (either simple or pissed or a combination of both) who sporadically threw out the odd racist comment. I think he then tried to even up the racism count by referring to Phil Dowd as a 'fat white c###'. I know I shouldn't have, but I actually found that strangely amusing.

Someone has been messing with Redondos Wiki. Udinese legend it seems. He was also 6"8 yesterday when I looked. Had to actually double check on google to make sure I hadn't missed this..