St1pe

I'm more disappointed with this thought I would be. It's always been on the cards but I really didn't think we could be this stupid. He looked so composed at centre back last season with Williamson, the games against Chelsea and Villa were really standout performances by him. In a perfect world I'd hoped if we'd manged to get a new manager this season we'd drastically improve just by promoting MYM and Ben Arfa to the first team. What an absolute bargain.

I haven't missed this feeling of ominous doom you get post-match and the inevitable sulk that seemed to ruin most of my Saturday evenings last season. I'm also literally speechless that Pardew has attempted to shift some blame to the fans for throwing the game away. What's most concerning is how we still look entirely clueless when going forward. It only really hit me when Aarons came on and linked up well with Haidara when I realised that was the first bit of link-up play that looked meaningful. I feel massively stupid actually because despite wanting us to lose as many games as it took to get Pards out last season, I'd somehow convinced myself that with the new players we'd be better this year. Maybe even be entertaining.

Really tired of us being a bag of shit now.

Every time I see stuff like this it just gives me more false hope that we'll see him again.

I'm not totally convinced of his defensive abilities but Haidara has been the only positive in that half in my opinion. It's actually nice to see a fullback with an intent to go past players and try and whip something in.

I've already started not really celebrating when we score and It's only three games into the season. Christ. I'm struggling to see how Riviere is keeping Ayoze out of the team given the impact he's had as a sub. I wouldn't like to argue who is better out of LDJ and him either.

I don't think I'm being pedantic in asking, what is international standard? Our current international standard is getting outplayed by any good team and struggling to beat any other team bar minnows. That's a fair comment. I guess that I'd have hoped we'd have a better selection of international players to pick from but as you say our current international standard isn't exactly the selection headache Spain will when trying to pick a squad.

I thought he was a decent player at Sunderland and he's surprised me of how much he has to his game but he's a million miles away from international standard. Or rather, he should be miles away from international standard and we should have far better players at our disposal.

Top work by Slim and Santoon. I'm chuffed Ben Arfa has finally seen the banner.

An organised performance but also an absolutely nothing performance going forward. Ayoze looks like he'd fair better up front than Riviere and Cabella seems like a poor man's Ben Arfa but the thing that really stuck in my throat was seeing those cretinous Villa fans diving about because they were preventing a corner being taken. I'd have love a goal from that. I'm still bitter about those banners from the relegation season. I guess that means the fist-puming bell-top will be back in the starting line-up now Williamson will be suspended. Wonderful.

I still can't believe on the basis of watching another tepid performance that Ben Arfa has been pushed out. This type of game is crying out for one of his moments.

That deflected Anita shot maybe?

It's amazing that we can change the line-up so many times over the past year or two, still produce performances going forward that seem creatively null yet Pardew still survives any kind of criticism from the media. We are a truly awful team to watch as a Newcastle fan and any neutral watching this must be bored out of their mind. Villa are the pits as well mind... and they look better than us.

I really wanted him to smash that in. He's turning more and more into Jonas every week.

I just hope Pardew's tactical master plan to oppose Villa's counter attacking style isn't to sit everyone behind the ball, don't commit any bodies forward and fire long balls at Rivierre or we're all in for a frustrating afternoon regardless of the line-up.

I agree with some of the Colo criticism. He seems to have obtained a free pass from a lot of people but personally I think his football has been consistently costly for us over the past year. At times he was excellent against City but he's almost becoming Bramble-esque. I don't know if that's a little too harsh on the lad yet I still find it hard to accept keeping someone captain when they've made it so clear they want to leave at certain stages. I suppose we lack obvious candidates for a replacement though.

I'm echoing what people have already said but when we switched to 433 during the first half against Man City I couldn't help think how fantastic it would be seeing Cabella on one side and Ben Arfa on the other. Unless a minor miracle happens in Pardew's mind or we get another manager in we'll never see it. Tragic really.

I don't think he was so terrible. He brought him on as a positionally weird wing back at the beginning but I thought he had a few decent touches and a good run into City's half. Wingers seem to be the new left backs this season, I think we had about 4 on the pitch at one stage.

He also seems to work well with Anita as well, more so than Tiote does anyway. If we play that middle 3 like we reverted to after 15 minutes or so I'm sure we'll control the game against some of the sides outside the top four a lot better than we did last year.

It's hard not to be pleased with the effort from the players today but it was a very familiar type of performance and outcome. The Anita for Obertan sub knacked us for about 10 minutes or so and we didn't have as much of the ball but both Aarons and Ayoze looked exciting. It was far better than the mauling I was expecting.

It has been fairly promising at times, some of our ball movement has been decent but it has never been an area that matters. I'm still bemused how a manager can be here for so long and have a team that looks so uncomfortable in the final third. Anita has been fantastic.

It was him that Andy Carroll headed the ball over wasn't it in that win at Arsenal. Yea, I think it was him.

Fabianski has been surprisingly solid dealing with crosses for a change.

I'd almost given up hope of ever seeing Ben Arfa in a Newcastle shirt again until I read that post from Jo. It's just going to make it even more unbearable watching Pardew survive and him being eventually sold.

I was pretty confident about the team I'd made until I've skimmed through this thread.