St1pe

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.

I usually just lurk here but this forum's commitment to hba and the ability to see through the obvious lies from the club is fantastic. Echoing what Nath wrote on the last page, arguing this topic on another forum has become tiresome, it's good to see the majority of the fans view this for the travesty that it is.