SLK

How many of you didn't see this coming (struggling this season) when no investment in senior players were made last summer despite the qualification to EL. We've seen it with many teams with smallish squads after playing in Europe for the first time. Stability is very important and I think once we continue the upturn in form till summer we would hopefully go into next season with renewed confidence and if the owner does the right thing buy spending on a very good forward and a centre back then we should be good.

Some of the comments in here are just ridiculous such as "Pardew was lucky", "he got out of jail", "we played crap". It feels Some people would rather see us loose so as to see the back of Paredw.

We did? Of course we did. Apart from the lucky penalty they scored from else not even in a 100 years they would have scored. Stoke's plan was just to park the bus and they did limit is to few chances but definitely we were the better side by a mile.

Tiote has been playing good recently and you still need a defensive midfielder. Gouffran has been a starter for a good reason. Pardew made a tactical change to go for more offensive setup since a draw was not good enough at home against a poorish side like Stoke.

Huh, must have been a typo on the commentators screen.

The commentator just mentioned Kone is 35. Wow he has done ok for such an age. He must have been really good when he was younger.

Fair enough didnt know this but I'm sure you agree that Wigan has always found some fantastic players on the cheap who were later sold for a lot of money. Roudrigez and Fegarouwa (spelling ?) are looking good too.

What's so funny about the line you highlighted ? Do you mean that some other manager could have definitely got the team to play better and win the game against Anzhil ?

Who's Wigan chief scout ? They seem to always find some gems on the cheap every season. I like this Kone fela. I think he would great in our side. Also if for whatever reason Alan Pardew leaves NUFC then I would definitely take Roberto Martinez.

You take each Match on it's own. I don't think any other manager in Pardew's place would have dome better. Actually if Ben Arfa wasnt his first game back in ages he would have nicked a win for us. Let's not let our Deslike of someone make us unfair.

First of all, Haidara is very good from the two games I've seen of him. happy for him to give h a taste of premier league match. Second of all, Santon is definitely a good player but I don't see him as a great defender but more of a winger who likes to provide assisted and go for a goal himself sometimes. I read somewhere where it said that he actually started as a striker when he was much younger. I don't know how he ended up ad a RB but you can see he likes to play up the field. I wouldn't mind seeing him in place of Jonas.

I don't think we have a chance of scoring without a descent striker not that Cisse is one this season anyway. For me the striking department is our weakest link at the moment and should be addressed this coming summer as priority one. Defence it next.

I forgot that Ryan Taylor plays for us :-) yes I know he is not a super star but his free kicks and the odd winner have been a miss. Pardew is not the best out there but he fits with the current regime at the top and I don't think we can attract any well known decent manager at this stage and i personally rather we go for a young continental manager similar to Laudrup.

COME ONN people. Do we really want to blame everything on Pardew. Im nit saying that he is immune from making mistakes and he did stuff up in a number of games this but last season too however we got away with them because our players were playing great but this season they havent lived up to their reputation. Are players not responsible for their performances ? They are not robots controlled by Pardew. He was their manager last season and they were playing well.When this season started a number of our most influential players were not performing especially in the first half. I think this was stemmed from low moral caused by the club not showing ambition to match the international players we have including Cabaye, Tiote, Coloccini, Jonas. Also having to play Williamsons for the whole first half of this season was a disaster. On top of that Ben Arfa not being available much this season especially in key games and really people shouldn't forget that we had to play kids not in Europa League only but in a lot of Premier League games. The same ones who now have been loaned out to championship teams and scotish leagues. It is easy to blame Pardew for the disappointment this season has turned out to but I reckon their wont be many managers who could have done better if placed in his position with the same circumstances.

Pardew may not be better than AVB or Laudrup but he was good enough to get us to 5th place last season. I reckon the disappointment of this season mainly stem from: 1) Not investing on senior players last summer. 2) Most players not performing at same level as they did the season before except for Demba Ba. 3) playing in Europa League with a smallish squad. 4) More injuries to key players with longer recovery periods. The bottom line is any manager facing the problems above would have struggled to cope.

So manager of the year is now forgotten about !!!

That sums it up really well. At 0-0 he wasn't desperate to get a goal and that is totally unacceptable given the circumstances. The only change he could've realistically made would've been Marveaux/Obertan for Jonas and even that would've been churlish considering how well Jonas and Debuchy linked up in the second half. We had no other game changers on the bench. Yet Luke Moore has changed the game for them by shuffling the pack and sending Michu back to run midfield. Last season against Man City, Mancini took a striker off for De Jong to release Toure, who scored within five minutes. You don't always need a "game-changer" if you think about it enough. Pardew is embarrassingly poor at doing this because he's a tactical dud. Sometimes as a manager you have to do stuff to change the game that goes beyond hoying Shola on. That is all he knows. You talk an obscene amount of s**** Wullie Luke Moore did absolutely nothing when he came on other than stand prone and swing a leg at the ball while our defense disintegrated around him. I like Laudrup, but it was not a tactical masterstroke by any stretch of the imagination. Michu did little when either up front or in midfield today. It's pretty clear there are a small number of people on here that will not accept that we can get dealt a bad hand and Pardew can't be held accountable for it. He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. I never said Luke Moore did anything (other than score the winning goal), I said Laudrup shuffled the pack by bringing him on. You obviously think a manager can only change the game by bringing on some sort of super-sub. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. We're 15th ffs. Most teams in the league would have beaten Swansea today, they were appalling, very much "after the Lord Mayor's show" and yet they still won. Not at all, however when you're playing the best football of the game and are looking good value for a goal I don't believe that you really need to "shuffle the pack". You talk about Pardew being a reactive manager however I struggle to think of any managers who'd have made the changes you were so clearly crying out for in the same position. The old adage if it ain't broke don't fix it comes to mind here. Laudrup's changes were reactive because we'd taken the game by the scruff of the neck, however by your logic he should've played his hand on the 17th minute when they were all over us. I also think it's pretty apparent what I meant by damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. Had he made s substitution and the result been the same you'd have been on here tearing strips off him for making changes when we were in the ascendancy. I've gave the man jip this season when he has got it wrong, I was on here practically calling for him to be hung drawn and quartered after the Reading game, but he did everything right today and he's still seen as public enemy number one by some of our support. It's absolutely mental stuff. How can he have done everything right and lost that game? Swansea had clearly been on the p*ss all week and would have been beaten by most other sides in the league. He lost that game because shit can happens sometimes especially on football. We were unlucky man. And no I don't think most teams would have won here considering how good Swansea are when the have the possession. They looked like Barcelona at certin periods in the first half.

That sums it up really well. At 0-0 he wasn't desperate to get a goal and that is totally unacceptable given the circumstances. The only change he could've realistically made would've been Marveaux/Obertan for Jonas and even that would've been churlish considering how well Jonas and Debuchy linked up in the second half. We had no other game changers on the bench. Yet Luke Moore has changed the game for them by shuffling the pack and sending Michu back to run midfield. Last season against Man City, Mancini took a striker off for De Jong to release Toure, who scored within five minutes. You don't always need a "game-changer" if you think about it enough. Pardew is embarrassingly poor at doing this because he's a tactical dud. Sometimes as a manager you have to do stuff to change the game that goes beyond hoying Shola on. That is all he knows. You talk an obscene amount of s**** Wullie Luke Moore did absolutely nothing when he came on other than stand prone and swing a leg at the ball while our defense disintegrated around him. I like Laudrup, but it was not a tactical masterstroke by any stretch of the imagination. Michu did little when either up front or in midfield today. It's pretty clear there are a small number of people on here that will not accept that we can get dealt a bad hand and Pardew can't be held accountable for it. He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. I never said Luke Moore did anything (other than score the winning goal), I said Laudrup shuffled the pack by bringing him on. You obviously think a manager can only change the game by bringing on some sort of super-sub. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. We're 15th ffs. Most teams in the league would have beaten Swansea today, they were appalling, very much "after the Lord Mayor's show" and yet they still won. Anyone would have scored that goal against that comical defending. That's why he was laughing his arse of for scoring his 2nd goal after more than a year.

I have mainly two negative points against Cisse. His lack of jumping and his desire to go for power rather than composure with his shots.

Cisse is still a worry for me. Yes he might score the odd spectacular every now and then but I rather see him score the easy ones more frequently than the goal of the season once a year.

So you are not forgetting Cabaye's shot that got deflected into the cross bar and Sissoko's shot that their keeper finger saved it. I agree that Cisse and Gouffran should have hit the target but 2nd half they were very lucky to even get a draw let a lone win it.

They were lucky because it was just a hopeful cross into the penalty box that this time the our defenders got mixed trying to clear the ball. I think lack of experience playing together being a new centre back and a goalie. They were absolutely lucky as we had 3 chances of our own that could have sealed the match for us.

I don't see how Pardew was negative. Their goal came against the run of play. We battered them the 2nd half and we were unlucky not to score few goals ourselves. They just got lucky against our not so stable defence.

Should have won this game. Very unlucky. Although it is fair to say that our defence didn't look too assured. It was a goal that could have been easily avoided. It was gifted to them really.

I wish as a replacement for Colo, we would try and get Adil Rami but I'm sure he would cost a lot if Valencia is to sell. I wouldn't think he would come here anyway. Just a dream.