Hughesy

Probably our best player today along with santon.

Drives me crazy. Possible can of worms here, but I think man marking at corners and free kicks is a more effective way of dealing with attackers. As do I.

I genuinely must have missed something about Krul's keeping - I think he is a great keeper but I've never been convinced by him coming for crosses or dominating the box with his aerial presence. I appear to be in the minority though.

Again, can't agree there. Harper is far more decisive in coming for crosses - he makes his mind up and commits to it. I have always found that Krul tends to flap a bit and look uncertain as to whether to come or not.

Krul is much better at manning his box, and much better collecting from corners in my opinion. Harper barely moves off his line Can't see that myself. Krul's biggest weakness is his judgment on crosses and coming off his line.

He knows we hate it, so why put it on the stadium, on the season tickets, on the roof, in the tunnel around the 'Howay the Lads' sign... May well be something else, but people must have learned there lesson from all the other times we've said "Ashley wouldn't be that stupid." Because we haven't gotten a good enough offer for the stadium rights yet.. what else would you suggest he puts there as a place holder for the future naming rights? "You're ad here"? We already have a sponsor for the shirts, the only way that's changing is if we find a better deal, it'll be interesting to see what it is, but please get the whole Sports Direct conspiracy out of your heads. You must have missed SJH's comments that Ashley only planned to use NUFC as a platform to market Sports Direct abroad. Not sure I would believe much of what comes out of Hall's mouth to be honest.

Nah, there was a clause written into the deal that allowed either party to end the deal at the end of this season. Fair enough.

They might also had to have paid some sort of penalty for breaking the sponsorship early.

Love some matches more than others, but that's football. I will always enjoy watching us play. Certainly enjoying watching this team play more than any team since Robson's.

Almost the most frustrating thing about it (over than the fact that it never works and is overused) is that the ball should probably be going to Taylor as he is better in the air than Williamson.

I think he's told too personally. It's a little thing but he doesn't join in the attacking play warm-ups they do pre-match, it's only Santon on his side. I agree he is wasted as a winger in a 4-4-2 in games against 'lesser teams' You are possibly right there. It is frustrating to see him either turn back or wait for the Santon overlap - he still has the ability to beat a man I think.

I am a big Jonas fan but he was poor on Saturday. He seems to almost have completely given up any attempt to beat his man and is now playing pretty much as a defensive winger.

For an 18 year old, I thought he was very good. Think he can be potentially be a very very good player. Got a bit lost at time with the awful football we were playing, but held his own.

Yesterday was just the worst of what we have more often than not and the team we put out should have been good enough to beat Reading. Our problem isn't only the personnel, it's as much to do with the way we try to play as a team and that doesn’t come from the players. I don’t believe that our players can’t string a series of passes together against Reading. I don’t believe that our players can’t find or create space in which to accept a pass against Reading. I don’t believe that our players just decide for themselves that they are going to tell Williamson to go up top for every free-kick and attempt to find him every time. That must come from the coaching and that’s what is to blame, I don’t believe that our coaches do that without some input from the manager, in fact I don’t believe that our coaches do that without the guidance of the manager because Carver has been here a long time and that hasn’t been a tactic we’ve used so often before. Our coaching can't be good enough and that’s being reflected in our performances. I’m not even sure that we are set up not to get beat, I think we’re set up to play a style of play that we don’t have the players to execute. I don’t have a problem with 4-4-2 when you have pace on the wings, we don’t have that so 4-4-2 fails before it starts. If we are going to play 4-4-2 then we need to bring two pacey wingers in who can get to the line and put a ball into the box on a regular basis. Blaming our poor performance against Reading on our recruitment isn’t getting at the problem, it’s hiding it because we had enough on the field or not picked, to play better than we did. So you think that our players are capable of passing to each other and finding space, but don't do so because they are told not to do so by Pardew?

Poor today. Lack of movement from others didn't help. But he didn't attack with any pace or drive today.

Do Norwich and Villa have better starting XIs though? No - but we got 4 points from those games.

I think people are somewhat over-estimating our squad. Yes, we have a good starting XI and a decent enough bench, but I am not convinced that we should be doing any better than we currently are (by currently I mean last season and the start of this season). I think most people would admit that Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City and Man Utd definitely have better starting XIs and squads than us and, if we are being completely objective about it, so do Spurs. Any place higher than 6th and I think we are punching about our weight for the quality of squad we have.

I've met him a few times and as you say, he's a lovely bloke. Made up for him. Exactly the type of person we want in our club and contrast that to some of the dicks we had 5-10 years ago. He is now an invaluable player for us with the versatility and attitude he brings and was excellent again on Sunday. The appalling behaviour of some of our "fans" towards him initially just ticks another box as it proves he has the mental strength needed too. Just wish those who seem to always need a scapegoat would learn and lay off Obertan or whoever else it is they're getting on to at any given time. Couldn't agree more. Some of the criticism of our players is so often unwarranted and unjustified - see Harper for the most recent example of someone getting a load of misguided crap.

Hopefully in time this ability to control matches will develop. I am certainly prepared to give Pardew a fair amount of leeway on this given what he has achieved since he has been here. And to be honest, if he carries on delivering top 6 places each season (especially given the resources of the teams in the top 4), I am not sure I am really that bothered about whether or not we control matches sufficiently. Whether we can do that without controlling matches as you say is up for debate.

Not sure if Pardew necessarily has 'a lot to prove'. On any analysis, he has done remarkably well since joining us.

Think Pardew's shown more than enough in the last two years for us to want to keep him for a long time.

Bloody hell - has Derek spent the last 20 years eating?

Fair enough. Nevertheless my feelings remain the same - the ideas of what clubs can spend being linked only to their revenue streams essentially stops any other team being able to challenge the established Champions League clubs.

I think we can conclude that Shola moved around a lot in his childhood. But no matter where he was, he still got to training.

I know where you are coming from, but I have more of a problem with the efforts by UEFA to maintain the current status quo by their FFP rules than Man City. I suspect, but confess I have no evidence to prove it, that FFP would prevent any club from doing what NUFC did under Hall and Keegan. And to me having a closed shop is worse than having some clubs buying success.