Ndegwa

Who scored that ridiculous power header at the ACON? I remember watching it at a service station (random I know) and thinking it's probably the most powerful header I've ever seen

Says he wants to win something before he sells the club

What the f***. He's saying it's his fault and he'll invest next season

Dunno why that made me laugh so much, had an image of Stalin fronting a 7-piece Wu Tang style hip hop collective

Eugh, I can't believe this is even a debate. Some people's approach to football in this country man.

Link? Don't exactly know why I'm so desperate to torture myself with his bullshit though. Just based on tweets from different journos who were there. Also rewarded our brave troops with two days off.... Thank god, we wouldn't want them to burn out now. :lol: As if any of them actually would get up and leave man. f***ing hells bollocks Christ what an absolute shambles :lol:

Link? Don't exactly know why I'm so desperate to torture myself with his bullshit though.

All this 'he's good in possession' and 'ticks things along nicely' is absolute fucking crap man The guy's first touch is especially turboshite (the amount of times he loses possession immediately after receiving the ball or is forced to go backwards due to a heavy touch is ridiculous), his range of passing is below average (he especially struggles with the weight...watching him ping it vociferously at a team mate who's 5 yards away is hilarious), his positioning is playground-like (hence his constant need to charge around the pitch like a ginger lunatic...he's hardly ever in good positions with or without the ball, always 'on the edge' if you like) and he's about as composed in the middle of the park as a cat with early signs of dementia. The fact that he's been one of our better performers in midfield this season speaks volumes about the amount of times he's been selected. If he makes a mistake, it's glossed over. If Abeid or Anita make a mistake- christ. They're publicly and privately ridiculed. He's done some good things for us (as you would expect a PL-level footballer to do, his goals and assists record attests to that) but the praise for him by the club, media and some on here is staggering imo.

Taylor's freekicks tho

Colback's so crap man, great opportunity to find a team mate in the box but overruns it

I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if he rocks up to the training ground in the morning with a boombox on his shoulder, proceeding to claim that an uncomfortable-looking Zaha is 'ma nigga' to the rest of the group

Anyone hear the (Martin Luther) King on SSN yesterday eve? Saying that Puncheon is a great story for black footballers to look up to, and that he's 'not afraid to say' that 80% of Palace's academy players are black..

Not passionate enough for me, not willing to get hurt trying to win a header...fans love that

It was Drivetime, the one with Darren Gough...the other guy was talking about how Pardew is a patchy manager and needs to take the blame for the squad, playing style and current predicament, whilst Gough was peddling the 'high expectations' and 'deluded' tags (he even said 'didn't they finish 6th...7th...or something under Pardew last year? The fans then expect a finish like that every year'). Hawksbee and Jacobs also spoke very favourably about us earlier, at least I think it was them...don't listen to Talksport often, I just happened to be driving for several hours today.

Talksport saying Pardew needs to take some of the blame for current plight

Talksport stuck their teeth into Colo for the letter about 20 mins ago. Called it incredibly patronising (ripped him apart for wanting to 'defend the city' when he won't even try and defend our goal, they thought that bit was especially rich) and hardly valid from someone who wanted to jump ship back to beefland a couple of years ago. Called the club cheeky for suddenly needing our support, when they've done whatever they've wanted for several years now without even having the decency to at least communicate with the fans. Also had some nice words about our fans, no deluded tag, just said that we will get behind the team if you show a positive approach to a game in addition to putting in a bit of effort. Even mentioned how a lot of fans would like to see us relegated in order to force regime change. Was pleasantly surprised if I'm honest.

...and especially something that needs to be translated into English. I am struggling to find any of this remotely funny

Well it is dude. It's not like Messi flip-flapped him, he turned one way then the other with incredible close control. But it was a pretty simple move, just executed in a way that only Messi could execute it, the little fucker.

Thought about it, decided no. For a start I live in the south (yeah the appletini drinking bit) and I wouldn't be able to hack the history-revisionist, 'see what happens when you get rid of a good manager like Pardew' bullshit abuse without administering death by a thousand cuts to a significant section of SW19. Secondly, the Championship was fun last time out but would suck this time as we simply don't have the squad capable of getting us out of it. Hughton was a massive part of bringing some focus, dignity, professionalism and respect back to the club and we won't have that this time round. Come to think of it, I miss Hughton. He might have had his managerial deficiencies, particularly his cautious approach on occasions, but what a thoroughly nice bloke- it was during his tenure that fans of other clubs actually used to say nice things about NUFC to me mainly because we were represented by the manager so well. I don't see things in black and white (meh) so I don't think we'd 'do a Blackpool' (meh) but I certainly think we might end up in the Championship for a few years, which personally I would grow to dislike.

Not enough passion imo

Great post. It continues to amaze me how simple the football discussion in England is. It's always so general and just scratching the surface. Seems like most people think that the managers job is to pick a formation, pick the team, "motivate" them and make subsitutions. You rarely see managers talking about anything concrete. It's always "we lacked a bit of urgency" or "we couldnt deal with this or that" or other nonsence. Where's the discussion about actual models of play? And I'm not talking about "playing posession football", "parking the buss" or "lumping it forward". About models that the team has drilled over and over again in practice and that guide everything they do on the pitch. Where they move or look for a pass in a certain situation. Are the players receiving the ball in a body position that is positive and open towards the play? Or are they constantly receiving it in a negative position? (in Newcastle it's the latter) Just for an example my own team (that I support I mean, not play for hah) plays in the 3rd highest division in Finland and this is basicly what the manager said in the match report after winning 1-0 today (free translation). "Worst game we've played since I came here. We didnt work collectively and it was very hard to find any of the models in the game that we've been practicing and succesfully implemented in previous games. Build up was too static and slow. In the build up phase our positions we're constantly negative and impractical. The movements the forwards made were poor. Anticipation, timing and reactions to play in defence were also poor." Jesus. How refreshing it would be to some day hear a Newcastle manager talk about football like this instead of the same old phrases. Someone who actually had an idea of how he wants his team to play football and the knowledge to coach them in a way that they could implement his ideas on the pitch. Maybe the managers are just serving up what the public wants but I would seriously be intrigued to visit the training in Newcastle to see what actually happens there and what kind of things are discussed. edit: and to be clear I'm not saying this is typical Finnish football discussion. No way. But considering the level of English football you'd think the talk around it would be a little bit more in depth. Two great posts. Brilliant stuff. My own experience confounds these points for me. I was at Fulham and Brentford's academies as a youngster. I wasn't the greatest footballer (well obviously)but had decent technical ability and could get up and down the pitch a bit. I played in the middle of the park and all my coaches used to do is to tell me to get close to the front 2 when the ball was in the air, and when the CBs got it to again get close to the strikers when they would inevitably launch it. None of us in the centre would ever do what the modern CM would do, passing and recycling- all we did was try and get on the end of the knockdowns and if we had possession to hit an aimless ball into the channels for the quick wingers to chase...in addition to 'putting a tackle in' and winning the aerial battle from goal kicks. It wasn't until I was older that I realised how retarded this was. I played a youth tournament in Gothenburg back in 2002 and I remember being quite confused as to why teams had significantly more possession than us...and these guys were from minor academies like Halmstads, Strindheim...hell even some invitational XI from Uganda ran rings round us. The thing is I remember other academies and teams from England doing exactly the same; whoever ran faster and jumped higher tended to win. I played with some very talented players but they wouldn't be able to use their natural technique so much, more their natural athleticism. This was apparently elite level youth development

Huddlestone

2 deflections could help save our season.

Err Absolutely sick of the Chronicle's 'journalists.' How on earth can anyone of sound mind convince themselves that Gouffran is trying hard?