Mick Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 False. In May we'll know if we've had our best season in six years. Based on league and points gained SteveMc is correct that we are currently having our best season in six years. He didn't mention "currently" or I would have agreed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveMc Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 False. In May we'll know if we've had our best season in six years. Based on league and points gained SteveMc is correct that we are currently having our best season in six years. He didn't mention "currently" or I would have agreed. Sorry about that I'll be less ambiguous from now on. I thought it was a given that I was unable to see into the future though. (It falls away and we finish 12th btw Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ponsaelius Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 This thread's fun. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Hence the phrase 'having' not had. I'm not putting you down for having an agenda -rather saying that there is some pretty stark evidence that you have conveniently ignored that completely nullifies your point. I forgot about Ba, you're right he should get that one if it's true that he was the one who wanted him. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveMc Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Hence the phrase 'having' not had. I'm not putting you down for having an agenda -rather saying that there is some pretty stark evidence that you have conveniently ignored that completely nullifies your point. I forgot about Ba, you're right he should get that one if it's true that he was the one who wanted him. Apparently he spoek to his mates at West Ham and heard enough to decide he should go for him. Glad we did Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Sorry about that I'll be less ambiguous from now on. I thought it was a given that I was unable to see into the future though. (It falls away and we finish 12th btw I wasn't having a go at you, I was explaining why I didn't agree with what you'd posted. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveMc Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Sorry about that I'll be less ambiguous from now on. I thought it was a given that I was unable to see into the future though. (It falls away and we finish 12th btw I wasn't having a go at you, I was explaining why I didn't agree with what you'd posted. I know - just being a semi beered up internet pedant. Nothing personal Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hughesy Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 What a strange thing to say. First, is it actually that easy to pinpoint what any manager is good at? Especially when you then try and pull apart each quality and attribute it to someone else. Do you think Wenger scouts all the players he buys himself? No, he has a scouting team for that. However, ask people what Wenger's qualities are and the first thing people will say is his ability to buy young, unproven talent. Second, you don't think he got all the substitutions right today. Show me a manager who does? You seem to be expecting a 100% success rate. It isn't a science - you can see why Pardew didn't change anything at half time bearing in mind we could/should have been 3 up by then. We could go round in circles on this one - but seriously, we've had two dodgy results all season (one of which was understandable given our lack of options) and people are having a go at Pardew?!?! We are in 6th place for God's sake with a pretty small squad! Where did you expect us to be? What does Pardew have to convince the doubters that he is doing a good job? And you wonder why NUFC fans have a reputation for being deluded? Absolutely staggering overreactions. I really wouldn't try to ever compare Pardew to Wenger, and I have never mentioned his ability to buy young, unproven talent. I think Wenger is a very good manager who gets his team to play a good brand of football and usually gets the best out of his players. Secondly, I don't think he got any of his substitutions right today never mind all of them. We have had two dodgy results but we've been lucky on quite a few occasions where we've had results which were better than our display deserved. Today was a poor result against a team we should have beaten and we didn't do enough to get the points. Our game plan wasn't working and we stuck with it until the end of the game, I’m not going to congratulate Pardew for screwing up, you can if you want to. As for who is deluded, we’ll know by the end of the season, won’t we? I wasn't comparing Wenger to Pardew in terms of managerial ability. I was discussing your comment asking what Pardew was good at. For example (and I paraphrase), you claimed that us signing good players was not down to Pardew but Carr. Well - is Wenger responsible for the players he signs? No, he isn't. Not sure what you don't grasp about what I said. Interesting that you say Wenger plays a good brand of football and gets the most of his players. Under Pardew, we are playing better football than we have done for a while. Under Pardew, I would argue that one of his strengths is getting the best out of players. So yet again - not comparing Wenger and Pardew or claiming that Wenger and Pardew are equals. Substitutions - I can see reasoning behind most of his subs. I think he should have brought Ben Arfa on though and I am not sure why he didn't. To me, that was his major mistake. Other than that - didn't see much wrong. We have had luck on our side this season. Who hasn't? Every team has. We have also had bad luck. We did enough to win today, for example. Luiz should have been sent off in the Chelsea game. We had a severely depleted team against Norwich (no way we would have lost that game with a full strength team). Not sure where I proposed congratulating Pardew for today?? More stating that no manager will get every game right and Pardew, in my eyes, has done enough to deserve a fair bit of leeway when it comes to a game like today. A game which we deserved to win. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiresias Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 There's a difference between having a few criticisms of a manager and calling for his head...the trouble is not sure Ashley understands that... Overall he's been great, got a few niggles, I don't think there's a manager alive without some problems one could pick with their tactics etc. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
madras Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 I can understand bringing on shola (though i think it was wrong), can't understand the sammi and haris subs though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I wasn't comparing Wenger to Pardew in terms of managerial ability. I was discussing your comment asking what Pardew was good at. For example (and I paraphrase), you claimed that us signing good players was not down to Pardew but Carr. Well - is Wenger responsible for the players he signs? No, he isn't. Not sure what you don't grasp about what I said. Interesting that you say Wenger plays a good brand of football and gets the most of his players. Under Pardew, we are playing better football than we have done for a while. Under Pardew, I would argue that one of his strengths is getting the best out of players. So yet again - not comparing Wenger and Pardew or claiming that Wenger and Pardew are equals. Substitutions - I can see reasoning behind most of his subs. I think he should have brought Ben Arfa on though and I am not sure why he didn't. To me, that was his major mistake. Other than that - didn't see much wrong. We have had luck on our side this season. Who hasn't? Every team has. We have also had bad luck. We did enough to win today, for example. Luiz should have been sent off in the Chelsea game. We had a severely depleted team against Norwich (no way we would have lost that game with a full strength team). Not sure where I proposed congratulating Pardew for today?? More stating that no manager will get every game right and Pardew, in my eyes, has done enough to deserve a fair bit of leeway when it comes to a game like today. A game which we deserved to win. Under Pardew we've played well at times but not consistently and today we were left badly wanting and resorted to hoofing the ball into the middle. Stoke away was a good game but it was no better than beating Arsenal away last season. Have we played better under Pardew than we did when we beat Villa and the Mackems last season? If our game plan hadn’t worked against stoke would we have been able to change our game? My guess is that we probably wouldn’t have. Today we kept playing the same balls into the box and it didn’t work yet we didn’t try to change how we were playing. Obertan had the type of game that is becoming his standard, he was completely ineffective yet it took something like 82 minutes to change it. Best went off and we didn’t try to change the way we were playing, we went like for like and carried on with what hadn’t been working up until that point. Why would bringing Shola on have given us anything different to what Best was giving us? Maybe bringing Ben Arfa or Vuckic on for Best would have changed things as neither of them are anything like Shola and Best. Taking Obertan off at half time would have given us something different on the right rather than trying to hoy the ball into the middle in the hope that we’d get a header on target and away from the keeper. Against Norwich we played 4 full backs when we did have a central defender who didn’t get a game. I can’t say for certain that we would have won with him, I can say it would have been easier playing somebody who was natural and comfortable in that position. If Luiz had been sent off against Chelsea we’d have had a better chance of getting something, 11 v 11 and we weren’t in the game as far as getting anything out of it is concerned. We didn’t deserve to win today, I don’t think we did enough and we didn’t work hard enough other than repeating what had already failed to break them down. We had plenty of possession yet we failed to do anything with it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
madras Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 harsh mick. i thought the first half alone had us well deserving winners. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disco Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I can understand bringing on shola (though i think it was wrong), can't understand the sammi and haris subs though. Who would you have brought on for Tiote? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
madras Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I can understand bringing on shola (though i think it was wrong), can't understand the sammi and haris subs though. Who would you have brought on for Tiote? ben arfa and dropped cabaye into the middle, go after the game and push them back. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 harsh mick. i thought the first half alone had us well deserving winners. We didn't put the ball in the net and we only seemed to have one idea of how to score and that was get the ball over the top when they had 5 or 6 players in the box defending. We were far too predictable for far too long and that was plain to see by half time when we should have made at least one change, possibly two. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRC Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 HBA Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JH Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 What maddy said Bringing HBA on for a CM would have been a real sign of intention. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
madras Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 harsh mick. i thought the first half alone had us well deserving winners. We didn't put the ball in the net and we only seemed to have one idea of how to score and that was get the ball over the top when they had 5 or 6 players in the box defending. We were far too predictable for far too long and that was plain to see by half time when we should have made at least one change, possibly two. dunno like, we hit the woodwork without just lumping it forward ? agreed we were far to predicatable in the 2nd half Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
M4 Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Ben Arfa should have been on much sooner than when Tioté broke down. Could have come on for either Obertan or Jonas (today for the latter especially who was producing nothing). Once Tioté was to come off then push Benny in the middle. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRon Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 If Shola scores the chance he had within 5 mins of coming on, no one says a word. Was probably our best chance of the half also. Pardews done well for us this season. Cant see much point criticizing him beyond his choice over Ben Arfa today, anything more than that is massively reactionary for me. Our recent results have not told the story of how we've played whatsoever & key injuries have been unfortunate. That's the point though, Shola isn't a natural goalscorer. Swansea defend for their lives and defend deep. It was crying out for someone like HBA to open them up with a bit of outrageous skill. Pardew though wanted to stick with his bread and butter players and we got what we deserved. It was uncomfortably similar to the Tevez/Mascherano misjudgement which led to his sacking at West Ham. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sifu Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 What maddy said Bringing HBA on for a CM would have been a real sign of intention. Absolutely. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
quayside Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I can understand bringing on shola (though i think it was wrong), can't understand the sammi and haris subs though. Who would you have brought on for Tiote? I have to admit from where I was sitting I thought Sinclair had scored with that shot in the second half - but apart from that I think we could handle just about any counter Swansea could muster. So as I see it Ben Arfa comes on with minutes to play. I would have taken Best off for Shola but Hatem comes on for either Tiote or Obertan and we trust our back five to hold out and we try to win the game. I thought AP got it wrong today. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
M4 Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 What maddy said Bringing HBA on for a CM would have been a real sign of intention. Would have been in line with his alleged obsession with only playing him in the middle, or as a number 10. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 dunno like, we hit the woodwork without just lumping it forward ? agreed we were far to predicatable in the 2nd half You might get a signed shirt for hitting the woodwork at half time but you get nowt for that during the game. We did have a better first half but we still didn't score and I would have liked to have seen changes for the start of the second half. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sifu Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 What maddy said Bringing HBA on for a CM would have been a real sign of intention. Would have been in line with his alleged obsession with only playing him in the middle, or as a number 10. Yep. So it's quite puzzling why Ben Arfa didn't come on I guess we'll see on Tuesday in the Journal about the whole situation. Hmmm. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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