Hanshithispantz

So without Bale Tottenham could not have beaten us at home and West Ham away, the latter being in terrible form? Come on, man. I'm not saying they certainly would have but it hardly would have been a gigantic feat for them. Without Bale they wouldn't instantly crumble, they still have some superb players.

It genuinely astounds me that anyone can be that fucking naive.

Wow.

They would set out differently though so you cannot really say, I doubt they'd be any lower than 7th though.

Yeah, Football definitely works like that. If he got injured now how do you think they'd do? Who would carry the weight? I don't know and I don't care, take Bale out though and they aren't a mid table side, that is ludicrous.

Yeah, Football definitely works like that.

Aye, I don't buy it at all like, they didn't exactly look bad as a team against us for one. Bale is on fire and undoubtedly the main reason behind their current form, but he's not fucking Superman.

The other players aren't playing that well TBH. They've hardly been poor, have they?

Tottenham aren't playing poor though so Bale playing out of his skin is irrelevant, it's not like other players are suffering because of their system.

It's interesting the fine margins we're talking about here between Pardew being considered successful (or not). Forgetting about injuries etc. I'd say we only had four very bad games in that run (West Ham, Southampton, Fulham and Reading). Swansea I didn't think we were great but I thought we were unlucky to be hit on the break for the second goal when we were really pressing them for an equaliser, Stoke we were OK and got caught by two late goals, City always going to be tough, Man U we played some great stuff but then got beat in the last minute, Arsenal we again played some great stuff for 70 minutes and then unfortunately fell apart (can be partly attributed to Arsenal not playing on Boxing Day I think) and then Everton not amazing but beaten by 1 goal by a top 7 team. Am I happy with what happened during that run? No. But I do think that Pardew probably wasn't far off picking up a few more points during that run. On the flip side we were unfairly given a penalty against Wigan and them a man sent off, we were 10 minutes from a draw at home to QPR and a late Grant Holt header away from defeat at Carrow Road. It works both ways. Alan Skarare

Please do, might stop some of the revisionist bollocks we've been seeing recently. We've been awful this season and some fans have swallowed the injuries excuse completely. I don't think anyone would argue that we haven't underachieved. Sweet Fwiw I want him gone ideally (is that ok Inochi?) but if the board are going to back him I'm happy enough for him to get another chance next season. This. I'm happy enough with him here (I mean it could be a fucking lot worse), by picking out his faults I'm not suggesting he's completely fucking inept or anything, I'm just saying "he did shit there" when he indeed did do shit there.

That first team finished 5th, the 2nd team was 16th on 21 points until we bought 2 new shiny players. But the argument is flawed anyway, for a start Anita's percentage is 69% despite him never being injured, his percentage is low because the manager (wrongly imo) has just chose not to play the lad, the same for Marveaux who could easily have amassed far more appearances than he has, not to mention that substitution appearances or times where they have just sat on the bench haven't been taken into account for either table for any player, which again is down to the manager not picking said players. Also 80% or higher is a bit convenient (and wrong, the top team actually has 5 players 80% or higher), if we went 70% or higher (you can include Cabaye in this one) the 2nd team wins with 7 players to 6... Using your method at 70% the contrasting core players look like this. Krul, Simpson, Coloccini, Cabaye, Jonas, Ba Krul, Colo, Santon, Perch, Jonas, Ba, Cisse Basically it's all a bit pointless. Like I said why does this argument have to be so extreme? Taking our injuries into account if we were in the top 10 before the Villa game and were currently sitting on ~40 points I would have no complaints, we would be about where we belong, had we remained injury free I would expect us to be challenging for the top 4.

I don't see why people have to hold such extreme stances here on either side. The board should have signed at least a couple of the players we did in January last summer, they fucked up there. In spite of this Pardew shouldn't have had the team he was given flirting with relegation for over half a season. Ultimately we would have benefited from a better board and/or a better manager.

It's the managers job to get whatever he has at his disposal functioning to together on the pitch and he failed dramatically during that period, and outside of the current top 5 and Liverpool I would say every chairmen or board in the league are worse or on par than "the men who decide what and when to buy" that we have, for differing reasons.

Newcastle United 0 - 1 West Ham United Newcastle United 1 - 2 Swansea City Southampton 2 - 0 Newcastle United Stoke City 2 - 1 Newcastle United Newcastle United 3 - 0 Wigan Athletic Fulham 2 - 1 Newcastle United Newcastle United 1 - 3 Manchester City Newcastle United 1 - 0 Queens Park Rangers Manchester United 4 - 3 Newcastle United Arsenal 7 - 3 Newcastle United Newcastle United 1 - 2 Everton Norwich City 0 - 0 Newcastle United Newcastle United 1 - 2 Reading That really shouldn't have happened

We've lost 6 games at home for one.

I think Ferguson realistically would have us more than 10 points better off.

Realistically we could have played this worst case scenario side for most of the season: Krul Simpson Williamson Coloccini Santon Tiote Anita Marv Obertan Ba Cisse It's not exactly great, but even though I'm completely discounting HBA and Cabaye that side really shouldn't be threatened by relegation under a good manager. A genuine top quality manager would have us in the top 10, I have no doubt about that.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Conway Twitty.

Why didn't they just do Inter's strikers circa 2011/2012?

Dean Ashton signed for them?

Ibra has a similar record this season in France to what he did last season in Italy if that means anything (it's slightly better like).

I have a small inkling that Papiss Cisse is probably a far better striker and goal-scorer than Gouffran and we should probably leave him where he is.

I have a question. In the bogs in one of the pubs in Kharkiv there was a sign saying you weren't allowed to w***, bum someone, rollerblade or skateboard. This really affected my enjoyment of the Ukraine, is it allowed in Moscow? If it's the same I might not bother. http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/5765/nowanking.png :lol: That's amazing