Stottie

He gets credit for sticking with Mitro and Tiote came in and did well. WBA didn't test Aarons, so we might have got away with one there. Let's see how we approach the next game. 7 of our last 13 are away, including the game against Norwich.

Nearly half a season already. I wouldn't have guessed that.

Another week without his strikers bothering the scoreboard. We all know how he is at directing set pieces, so imagine if he'd chanced on a squad without a center half who's already good at them.

Townsend well unlucky!

Well in Mitro son. A goal's been coming for him. That Tiote goal against Man City was disallowed after about eight of them hounded the ref and lino. From the replay, it was clear most of them hadn't even seen it.

Didn't touch him.

ffs, Wigan could have gone down several times under Martinez before the inevitable. In 2011, they were saved by Wayne Bridge effectively pulling a Bosingwa and having a 'mare against N'Zogbia. Wigan had previously finished comfortably midtable in the PL under Jewell and even Brucey. Wigan are currently in Division Three.

Dicking about with the team after the West Ham game was it for me. I can't see us winning an away game. Any hope from the new signings has already gone. I don't know what Douglas knows, but the first name he mentioned in that article was Pearson. I think he'd be miles ahead of Pulis. While the big impression is of a "kick them up the arse hard man", he had Leicester playing great at the end of last season. They won seven of their last nine games, setting them up for this year. Pearson has the odd "moment", but nothing as bad as pushing a lino or headbutting an opposition player. It took them a while to sack him after the sex tape bother with his son, so you suspect someone there wanted to keep him.

Watford's first goal last time was clearly offside but it felt more like the inevitable conclusion to our approach to the game, not something we should be outraged about.

I think he's a bit of a fraud, but more than that, it's nice to hear a fan saying something that disagrees with the standard media narrative. Everton are clearly underperforming, but not in a way that garners much sympathy. They're regularly throwing away points. They've got the leakiest defence at home in the league, so it would be typical us not to score. We have been creating more chances of late though, so fingers crossed this can be the game where we start converting them. It's about time Gini got one away from home.

Form table since the start of October 15 Newcastle United 16 5 3 8 20 30 -10 18 16 Everton 16 3 8 5 29 27 +2 17 Considering that we lost our first game in October 6-1, it's fair to conclude that they must be pretty bad at the back in classic Martinez stylee. It's not unlucky to draw lots of games if you're conceding nearly two a match.

You would think they could have signed a number of players with relegation clauses. Fifteen games for anyone to show a bit of promise in the Premier League. No will blame any individual new signing for them getting relegated from their current position. Leicester won seven of their last nine games last year, so it can be done. I haven't seen their fixtures, but some of Villa's remaining games will be largely meaningless for the other team.

Regardless of who is to blame, he needs to be playing and developing if he's not to end up a might-have-been.

madness from their side not to push like lunatics to get him imo, LvG's shitfest only has another year to run then they'll need someone The joke club in Manchester is now United. What a turnaround.

Craig bellamy's stats were rubbish too. Jamie Vardy took something like twenty appearances to get his second PL goal. Not that that's something we could afford our striker could do from now on. I just hope new arrivals don't mean disastrous tactical tinkering like the last game against Watford. It wiped out the positives from the Man U and West Ham games.

Looks all right on YT. With the crazy change to our tactics last week, I worry whether we can make something work when introducing Townsend and a completely different type of striker. We played well against West Ham and there were positives to build on. It seemed like they were all sacrificed for the LB situation.

fwiw, Gayle has only played 2300 minutes in the Premiership. That's 25 or so games, so that's 1 goal in just about 2 games playing in fits and starts. On numbers alone, the temptation is to say he's been Pardewed. I've barely seen him play and my lasting memory is of him coming on and wrecking Liverpool's title hopes in that 3-3 where Brendan Rodgers decided that trying to win 8-0 was more important than taking it to the last day of the season and keeping the pressure on Man City.

or he could get a premiership medal and play in next seasons champions league Well he's already got one of those medals and is still in the champions league, albeit not getting much of a game. If we weren't at risk of a relegation that would cost us the few decent players we have, I'd be all for Remy to Leicester. Their season is Premier League story of the decade. Since they ended last season with 7 wins in their last 9 games, their form looks too good for too long for them to miss out on CL, if not challenge all the way for the title.

In a nutshell Townsend looks like he's fast and has a shot on him, so here's hoping he can do the business. It's hard to know how good he is, because he's barely played for two seasons. Most of his Spurs game time was during that 13/14 post Bale, AVB -> Sherwood season. The club had all those new signings and their main striker Soldado could barely hit the proverbial cow's arse with a banjo. Sigurdsson didn't get a single league assist for them that year, though he's clearly a good footballer. Like Townsend, he didn't feature much under Sherwood in the second half of the season. The last six games they played 4-4-2 with Adebayor and Kane up front.

We're miles behind Leicester as a team but could maybe offer more playing time. And more money.

Very good! fwiw, all three of them scored against the mackems, so that's at least one monkey we might get off our back.

Does this mean Mbemba left back and Lascelles against Ighalo?

I suspect lots of them think he is deep down. It will all come out if he gets the England job. He'll get it much worse than Hodgson and possibly even McClaren. It's clear that David Squires and the blokes on the Football Ramble (one's a toon fan) already think Pardew is a joke. In general though, journos don't say anything because they don't think we deserve any better. For them, Newcastle are just a struggler, an afterthought. When Pardew left, someone linked to a Talksport (I know) program where Colin Murray said Newcastle have the third largest gate and eighth highest revenue, so Pardew has been a failure. He said the fans were right to expect more. But nobody really considers the resources at the club. We're just supposed to motor along somewhere down the league. It's the same for Everton and Aston Villa, teams that won the league in the eighties. Aston Villa can take three years to win a dozen home games and no-one in the media thinks it's an issue.

Big risk is Ighalo and Deeney bullying Colo and Mbemba. They are no. 1 in the league in long balls by 10 a game, about 15% more than anyone else. So when there's a ball over the top, our CH need to track the runs. Any bouncing ball, just deal with it. Put it out. Don't concede an easy one from a flick-on like the last time. Or fannying about at full back which gave them the other one. They average less possession than us, so we should see enough of it to work some opportunities. On recent form, we should be in with a good shout.

Mitro had a big contribution to our general team play against Man U and West Ham. Berahino is a better finisher but he won't be as involved. Berahino is a penalty taker, which distorts his stats a bit, and of his 14 goals last season, 11 were at home. We need to do better in away games. Normally this would just be an interesting tactical choice, but we're sitting in the relegation zone and the pressure is on. Since our midfield especially is improving, maybe see how it goes against Watford and then make a decision. Remy would be a snap-their-hands-off no-brainer, of course.