Hhtoon

It's Pards I feel sorry story for. 3 months of meticulous planning for this game ruined because Cabaye had his head turned.

Yup, making it waay too easy for them. We need someone who can hold the ball up and wait for the midfield to come up. Time for the big man???

Spot on. Fair enough, we're gonna get bummed but there have been good signs in our play. We're keeping it on the deck, looking to pass through them, Ben Arfa looks well up for it. There's some positives to take from this for sure. Agreed, just a shame we had to start against City.

It's the indiscipline that irritates me. Debuchy, mbiwa and Taylor. It's bizarre.

Christ, Cisse is pony.

He probably wasn't a Pards signing and we all know he was brought in January rather than the summer due to the struggles. So in effect, Pards maybe hadn't planned for him and is obviously now trying to decide where his best position it. That being said, Sissoko made his attributes pretty clear from the get go and ideally, if its to be a 442, against weaker opposition/at home he should replace Tiote. IMO of course.

Not sure why people get so wound up about Wonga. You borrow £100 for a week and it costs you about £13. A direct debit fails or you go overdrawn for 1 day and you can be charged £20 for each one by your bank. For sending out an automated letter that probably cost them 10p. In the dark days of my misspent youth I accumulated over £2k worth of bank charges for failed direct debits and going over my overdraft by less than £50. Completey my fault so didnt complain but Managed to reclaim 75% of it a few years back which was fun. Know which one I think is worse.

The 8 year deal was a grandiose gesture and was more for the appearance of stability than anything else after a bad few years and in Ashley's defence, who could have predicted it would be this bad? I would say Pardew would have been given another season if we ended up anywhere above 15th but this is way too grim. Ashley obviously shouldered some of the blame and tried to rectify that in Jan but the only person to blame since then is Pards. In an ideal world we would be able to change now and get a long term manager for the foreseeable, but realistically we somehow need to hang in and make the best appointment in the summer. Looking at our team and infrastructure you can't tell me that any manager from teams 7th downwards wouldn't seriously contemplate coming in. The person holding us back is Pards and I'm confident that will be rectified. Just hope it's not too late.

I so very much want this to be true. Not the knee thing, that's just cruel.

I'm not sure about this whole Ba throwing a strop about playing left of a 4-3-3. Don't get me wrong, it is possible/likely and maybe during the summer he said that if he wasn't given chances in the middle he would re-evaluate his position. But surely Pardew, after such a s*** run, could have put his arm round him and said "Dembs, look how s*** we are. Could we just have a few games trying the 4-3-3 from the end of last season? It's not your fault, it's the other players and injuries and I would really appreciate it. Wouldn't you rather be winning games?" Players must have a desire to win or else they wouldn't make it so I fail to believe that Ba wouldn't agree to that. If he did refuse then get rid. More worryingly is that Pards isn't asking.

I'm no fan of Gerrard but to be fair, the game was pretty dire and hethis a different class for them. I think him getting MOM says more about the game to be honest. As for us, typical of us when we are playing containment. No pressure on them bar the odd spell. The only players I am happy to see with the ball are Colo, Tiote and Ba. I physically wince when Obertan and Simpson get the ball under pressure.