pi_D

No

You see this is where people are missing the point. If a striker doesn't hold it up and wastes possession, how is the team going to consistently create chances for him? How are we going to get that far up the pitch a lot of the times? Stoke defended extremely deep because it was injury time. They allowed us to play up until the edge of their area but that doesn't happen at 0-0 or for most of the match. Modern strikers need to help the team get up the pitch. Just stop posting man, please.

We haven't played 442 for months Could have fooled me. Are you taking the p*ss?

Please do

I much prefer the idea of being over cautious with Arfa's return.

Is college dropout a windup merchant that I've not picked up on?

I can see Liverpool lodging a cheeky £35million bid for Benteke this summer.

That's debatable tbh. It's not. Benteke is much more all round.. Not from what I have seen. Benteke is great in the air, is a beast physicially, as Brummie says puts in a good shift. Cisse has a better touch, passing, positioning, technique, and a better awareness of what is going on around him. I'm comparing Cisse from his purple patch last season, not his current form.

Maybe I'm a little bias because I love Cisse but i think he is a fantastic striker and when playing well has far better attributes than any of the above listed. His confidence has been shook this season and he has been below par, but he is far better than the above mentioned players.

Cisse is a far better 'all-rounder' than Benteke.

I wouldn't take any one of those plays over Cisse.

Summary. Loads of faith in Cisse.

£100ish on prodirectsoccer Cheers

How much did those boots cost?

If the right sort of manager was available I'd be inclined to agree. Many on here would have sacked him at numerous points throughout the past two years tbf.

Agree with most of that htt. But im willing to keep pardew for the benefit of stability and incremental progression(even if hindered by pardew 's' negative football) over this season and next. There are few fans who feel pardew is the perfect manager, or even the best we could have atm. However this wee bit of stability is fucking lovely. Let's keep it this way for a while longer.

Read the posts again man, I'm clearly addressing a specific point. If you weren't being ironic with your comment about long balls, then your comment doesn't make sense. I'm sure you'll forgive me for misinterpreting what you said, considering. I was being sarcastic, clearly. Obviously not that clearly. Anyway, serves me right for biting. A lot of peoples patter in here has been lifting today and I lost patience, but with the wrong post.

Surely there was more ways to go about it that dropping him though? And it wasn't just 1 or 2 games either. I doubt Bobby Robson would have had to have dropped Ben Arfa put it that way. Well, I'm making an assumption that he wasn't just 'dropped'. I would imagine he was left out after being given reasons why by Pardew. While he was out of the team, he would have been working to improve the sides of his game he needed too. I'm making this assumption based on what Hatem has said since, coupled with the fact he didn't spit his dummy out about inferior players being played ahead of him. Once an improvement was evident, he was eased back into the team. I don't think anyone can argue that he came back in absolutely explosive form and contributed to our best run of the season. So to an extent; it worked perfectly. He's now rightly recognised as our best player and, according to the man himself, an all round better player. Yes, Bobby may have done things differently, but I don't think that's really relevant. That's why I don't think the 'man management' aspect of this can be questioned at all. Spot on. An excellent post.

Agree with Stifler here, in the main. Most of the time his runs are good and intelligent

Get out.

We missed that nasty streak badly while he was out. He's all energy, absolutely storms about and steams into challenges. We were far too pedestrian and polite without him and Cheik. Sets the tempo for our midfield. Crucial.

Some of it is mental