Jack Flash

Don't believe it, just humoring the article for discussion. Exactly, unless I've missed a forum rule saying nothing but pure facts are up for discussion. Alan Oliver articles are not worthy of discussion. Unless they're negative.

Exactly. Comparing shots on target (ours then theirs) West Brom A - 7-6 Liverpool H - 7-6 Swansea A - 4-13 (19 in total for them, 5 for us) Bolton H - 4-6 Stoke H - 11-2 Wigan A - 3-8 West Ham H - 9-5 Swansea H - 10-9 Southampton A - 3-10 Stoke A - 6-5 A very confident and motivated team taking their chances (Cisse in particular) compared to an much less confident and unmotivated team not taking their chances? Something to think about/completely ignore due to agenda. A flawed metric. We could have 20 shots on target but if 90% of them are hit and hope from outside the box i'd rather have 2 shots on target from inside the six yard box. You need to look at where the shots are being taken from in addition to simply using the crude numbers. Our free flowing, sport changing formation wouldn't have allowed for many 40 yarders. I didn't include shots off target for the reason you state btw. They're largely pointless compared to a shot on target.

Negativity = Believability, as always

Exactly. Comparing shots on target (ours then theirs) West Brom A - 7-6 Liverpool H - 7-6 Swansea A - 4-13 (19 in total for them, 5 for us) Bolton H - 4-6 Stoke H - 11-2 Wigan A - 3-8 West Ham H - 9-5 Swansea H - 10-9 Southampton A - 3-10 Stoke A - 6-5 A very confident and motivated team taking their chances (Cisse in particular) compared to an much less confident and unmotivated team not taking their chances? Something to think about/completely ignore due to agenda.

he also said nile ranger wouldn't play for the first team as long as he (pardew) is the manager. Think you've made that up, bro. Unless I've missed some quotes?

I've never seen anyone exhibiting that attitude, but forgetting that, do you think Pardew should show a bit of faith in the system that brought us our best run of form and results in his entire time here? Especially considering how s*** we are. Do you think he should do it? I don't want to hear whether you think he will or not.. Also, do you think he should have started the season playing this way? Given that Cisse was still the in form striker and the way we finished last season. Thanks for the assist.

Still effortlessly childish. Pardew said in the summer that Ba would be through the middle for 95% of the games. Might as well get used to it.

Such a child I'm accentuating the positive that SOMEONE is doing something to save us. The manager certainly isn't and very few players are. He's got two in his last eight games and one of those was a 93rd minute consolation so he's not doing that much. And the games before those 8? In which we were still playing badly? Aye.

Such a child I'm accentuating the positive that SOMEONE is doing something to save us. The manager certainly isn't and very few players are.

Highest contribution of any player in the league. Papering over them (growing) cracks still.

http://i45.tinypic.com/241kqae.jpg I assume this has changed today but still highlights how important he's been this season. *commence boring formation talk*

Similar style of play to Luque, the later was much more highly rated too, would probably be in our reserves with Xisco because he dosn't train as hard as Shola You reckon they're similar? Luque at Depor was an allround player, Michu seems to me to be a bit of a Spanish Kevin Nolan. That's incredibly harsh. On Nolan.

How many goals will it take before Defoe is considered a good player?

This time last year everybody was praising our work in the transfer market and the job the manager was doing. Things can change pretty quickly in football, probably best not be wishing we had Allardyce/Gold/Sullivan because they've had a good couple of months to start the season and some of their signings are doing well. If they'd deservedly lost the play-off final they'd be a laughing stock, fine margins. Not that I ever said I wanted those exact people, but they've gambled very well since relegation like Ashley did until last summer. Different methods but both very successful in achieving their aim. We're now going backwards because of the ongoing lack of ambition.

They have a board full of c***s. You've at least got a taste of that. Almost all my life They've done well this season though in avoiding relegation by the end November. Very few promoted teams have done that.

West Ham have a good manager and an ambitious board. I want to know that feel.

And he's back.

Chelsea fans calling Nolan a murderer and singing that "always a victim" song at him, purely because he's from Liverpool. Laugh or cry?

He's an easy target but he's had plenty of good games for us in his time here. Most of the criticism is OTT all things considered.

Trust the Flasher.

How's that? We haven't got the players and we're playing better teams than we've just played. As Parky says, we need to be a bit more intelligent than that. What for? 4-3-3? We certainly don't have the players for 4-4-2. Which is why we need to be more intelligent. Wigan ripped us apart once already while playing 4-3-3 and I hope Pardew has learne... We're doomed

How's that? We haven't got the players and we're playing better teams than we've just played. As Parky says, we need to be a bit more intelligent than that.

It could be easily be argued that playing the 4-3-3 now is too late anyway. We beat 5 bottom half/mid-table teams with it last year partly because they played like bottom half/mid-table teams. We've almost passed that 5 winnable games in a row stage now and have mostly harder teams coming up which won't be as easy to play against.

The "flick a switch and up we go" attitude is what I'm questioning. There's more to turning an entire season around than just changing a formation. We were 6th going into the West Brom game, high on confidence and well motivation which both obviously lends themselves to the kind of football we briefly played. It's the complete opposite now, like when Keegan's teams lost motivation at the end of a season and the attacking football fell short. While Pardew is desperate for results he's not going to change to a formation he almost definitely only remembers as the one we lost 4-0 with. His defensive minded approach doesn't want attacking football if it might lead to a big defeat.

Pardew is stubbornly sticking to a rigid, archaic formation which doesn't favour, or indeed involve, flair or creativity. The only hope we have of getting something from a game is to hope an individual pulls something out the bag and saves us. Cisse isn't doing that and Ben Arfa isn't either while Ba has been doing that this season. Nobody is happy with that current system but while it's here I'm banking on Ba to keep us going.