Toonpack

Who can you guarantee would do that for us ?? We've tried the manager switcheroo numerous times over the years, it's not worked yet, mind you we were top 5 last season.

and they didn't beat us either, they draw a lot away from home, usually 0-0 (ask Spurs and Liverpool)

So true, only Man U (4) Citeh and Swansea (3) and us with our 2, have scored more than one at home against Stoke all season. So I guess that means only SAF, Mancini and Laudrup have been more astute at tackling Stoke then Pardew.

And the apparently seamless integration of these "loads of new players" is down to who Personally I hope Pardew is our manager for the next 10 years, because for that to come to pass, we'll have to have been successful.

But for all this supposed negativity we dominated the game. Check out the stats on possession, shots, corners etc. That doesn't show a side sitting back, it shows a side taking the game on. My take was not that we were negative but that we could not convert our pressure into goals against a side who don't aim to do much other than sit back and adopt "spoiling" tactics. Possibly Marveaux for Jonas from the start might have given us a bit more creativity but Marveaux had game time in Moscow and was poor imo. Individually we are a much superior team then Stoke. That we won "the stat" doesn´t makes us having a good game. How many clear cut chances did we have? Not much considering the possession and shots we had, and thats what´s important. Gouffran missed a sitter first half, score first againts a team that parks the bus and the game changes irrevocably. Only 5 teams have conceded less goals than Stoke away from home this season (the Manchesters, Chelsea, Everton and Swansea) they lose but they don't lose "big".

for all I will give Pardew credit for turning us around from the ridiculous slump he put us in we still look a very average side, and our creativity is pretty much non-existent. We'll flourish against attacking sides as there's space in the game for the pace and power of our individual players to shine through, but against an organised and well drilled side we have no answers. You mean like Stoke, the anti-christ of teams That Stoke that we beat today btw. Unsurprisingly you've missed the point. Sorry, it's hard finding a point in amongst the interminable s**** you post. e.g. "The ridiculous slump he put us in" http://i.imgur.com/7Na8e0W.png If that's not a ridiculous slump then perhaps you could clarify what one is. It's the "he put us in" that's the shite, the slump is not open to contention.

That's a good point Ian and I had a similar thought leaving the ground We weren't at our best today but Stoke are past masters at making life difficult for teams by any means necessary, literally. It'll keep them in the league but magine coaching that ffs Imagine watching it, week in, week out !!! yet some reckon we are negative

for all I will give Pardew credit for turning us around from the ridiculous slump he put us in we still look a very average side, and our creativity is pretty much non-existent. We'll flourish against attacking sides as there's space in the game for the pace and power of our individual players to shine through, but against an organised and well drilled side we have no answers. You mean like Stoke, the anti-christ of teams That Stoke that we beat today btw. Unsurprisingly you've missed the point. Sorry, it's hard finding a point in amongst the interminable shite you post. e.g. "The ridiculous slump he put us in"

for all I will give Pardew credit for turning us around from the ridiculous slump he put us in we still look a very average side, and our creativity is pretty much non-existent. We'll flourish against attacking sides as there's space in the game for the pace and power of our individual players to shine through, but against an organised and well drilled side we have no answers. You mean like Stoke, the anti-christ of teams That Stoke that we beat today btw.

Get weeping bairn, no way he is NOT manager next season, thankfully.

Not really sure who you're referring to looking at the last page or so. Should've gone to specsavers

The same one as me I reckon, he was very very poor.

Away in Europe to a team that's record is: P7 W7 F12 A1 Aye, lets be miserable because we didn't rape them.

Marveaux was no better than Obertan IMO

No it's not, win and we're through, lose the away leg 2-1 and draw 0-0 at home we're out after 90 mins, draw 0-0 now and we've got extra time.

I thought that before the game but we got an hour out of him, he was rusty as fuck but came off unhurt. All's good.

Instead of flapping his arms and getting riled up, he might have wanted to organise his players and refocus their attention on the game, perhaps. Straight away he's allowed that red card to be an excuse, simply by how angry he became and focusing on it for a good 5 minutes. In the 12 minutes after the booking Real Madrid controlled the game and scored twice. Ferguson was busying getting the crowd hyped on the back of the red card. To me that suggests he didn't know what to do, as he wasn't focused on the game, or studying what changes Real Madrid had pulled on the sub. Perhaps this is being over critical. It would be interesting to see what the reaction would have been for a 'lesser' manager like, oh I don't know, our own? and 99.9% of the managers on the planet

Was that before or after QPR away? SWP tore him to shreds. When we kept a clean sheet? That's not the point though. What is the point of a defender, if not keeping clean sheets. Did you watch the game? Which one of the 15 clean sheets do you refer to. Look, I have had to suffer some REALLY shit defenders in my time (Glen Keeley springs to mind), anyone who is part of a defence with the record they had last season is not a shit defender. Their record proves that incontrovertibly. Ryan Taylor may not be a sooper dooper footballer but he was part of one of the best defences we've had for one hell of a long time.

Was that before or after QPR away? SWP tore him to shreds. When we kept a clean sheet? That's not the point though. What is the point of a defender, if not keeping clean sheets.

Aye, best defensive unit we've had performance wise, that I can recall, and yet the LB was s**** defensively, laughable. He was ffs The results, when he was playing, would strongly suggest you are wrong (or clueless). So one of the back four, who performed better than any other back four we've had for ages, was s****, yet the aforesaid back four remains one of the tightest we've had for years. I'll take a s**** fullback (by your yardstick) playing in a team not shipping goals any day of the week over owt else, seriously what else can be a meaningfull measure. You must really hate Santon I reckon. I think Santon is good, and will become top class in a few years. Colo was the main reason our defence looked so good. That and Taylor's good form, up until his injury. Even Williamson looked alright. Simpson saved us quite a few times as well. How highly do you rate Simpson? Santon is NOT good yet, he could well be though, as he's still extremely young, he's a crap defender (so far). Simpson is perfectly adequate, and gets way more stick than he deserves, although that's not to say couldn't be upgarded (or has been already) same category as Taylor, although Taylor is way more flexible in terms of roles within the team and I think we've really missed him this season because of that. A back four is a unit, always has been, always will be. As I said earlier it's also often better than the sum of it's parts.

Aye, best defensive unit we've had performance wise, that I can recall, and yet the LB was s**** defensively, laughable. He was ffs The results, when he was playing, would strongly suggest you are wrong (or clueless). So one of the back four, who performed better than any other back four we've had for ages, was shite, yet the aforesaid back four remains one of the tightest we've had for years. I'll take a shite fullback (by your yardstick) playing in a team not shipping goals any day of the week over owt else, seriously what else can be a meaningfull measure. You must really hate Santon I reckon.

Aye, best defensive unit we've had performance wise, that I can recall, and yet the LB was shite defensively, laughable.

Yet he was part of the most frugal back four we've had for donkeys years start of last season, but aye, you're right Back fours are often better than the sum of their parts. He's better defender than Santon currently is. The likes of him and Perch are average players maximising what they've got, any squad needs some of them.

At best he is a mid table manager, he is a reactive manager not a proactive one most of the time, and when he is proactive, his negativity generally means his changes make us more defensive. With this squad, that the owner has assembled, it is criminal that we don't maximise it with a better manager. At best (so far) we were 5th, with a shot at 4th

Because their players take the chances that are created for them. Manager's fault like