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http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,89739.50.html

 

Predictions thread. It's quite interesting in a dull sort of way.

 

Even more dull is compiling the results...

 

And here it is:

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4729/capturekev.png

 

My maths might be proper bollocks, but I get the average vote as 10.47th from 149 predictions before we'd kicked a ball this season.

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If we are constantly revising expectations - at what point would Pardew ever get praise for what he has achieved? I don't quite follow how preseason expectations were, for the sake of argument, 8th-11th, we are currently in 6th (3 points off 4th) and now people are suggesting that actually we have a squad (which we clearly don't) that should be in 6th by virtue of its quality and that therefore Pardew is, at best, matching expectations. It doesn't make sense!  At what point is any of the success attributed to Pardew and as part of a wider point, at what time is any success attributed to any manager? Or by virtue of its current league position, is each team achieving what it should be because expectations have been revised?

 

In summary, what I am trying to say is that it seems as if people have had an initial opinion, seen that we are now doing better than that original opinion, and decided that that is definitve proof that actually our squad is better than originally predicted and we are merely at par.  And that this improvement is solely down to the innate ability of the players in the squad and  has been achieved in spite of our manager?

 

When he is clearly getting the best out of the players he has at his disposal. League position and results aren't necessarily the best judge of that.

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It is not a bad indicator to be fair. I think usually the best indicator...  Certainly better than some subjective judgement about where a team 'should' be finishing, based on a fairly woolly assessment of the merits of the players of every squad in the league.

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Wonder which older players he would be interested in signing. I'm happy with buying the younger players tbh, just don't like the fact that it's mainly buying them to sell them off at a much higher price a few years later.

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here's my revised take on things, pretty football aside we're 6th at the moment and assuming 7th gets us europe we have an 8 point lead over norwich the current nearest contenders for that spot (i'm not counting liverpool)

 

we have 12 games left, only 4 of which are against teams either above us or liverpool

 

for me how we got to this point doesn't matter, if we're not in europe next season he'll have fucked up...you can't credit the guy for early form and then let him off the hook if he can't sustain it

 

assume we get nothing from the 4 "big team" games, that leaves him 8 games to not lose an 8 point lead

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If 7th gets us Europe which i highly doubt it will because i dont see Liverpool finishing in the top 5 but if it was then Europe is already ours as far as iam concerned......

 

There's no way in hell we are finishing lower than 7th the other teams are just simply not consistent enough, even if we have shit end to the season.

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Looking ever more likely that the Fulham game really knocked his confidence.

 

Jol adjusted and completely raped Pardew in the second half, Pardew just had no answer for it. His response seems to have been to set the team up very deep and approach the game very cautiously to try and stop it happening again. I can see his logic to some extent, Williamson is getting exposed more and more as the weeks go by, not signing anyone in January was a massive blunder.

 

I think with Taylor back next year and better CB depth he'd be more comfortable letting Cabaye press on a bit more.

 

I do think it's overly negative and will do more harm than good in the short term, though. Needs to at least play someone with a bit more forward threat than Ryan Taylor on the right if we are gonna essentially play with two DM's.

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Just going back to the point about expectations. At the beginning of the season I felt progress would have been shown with convincing top half finish. By that I mean avoiding the mid-table melee. Last season we were caugh in a cluster of sides including, Sunderland, Bolton and Fulham that could have finished anywhere from 8th and 14th, only the odd point seperated those sides. That pattern has developed again this season with the likes of Sunderland, Everton, Stoke, Fulham and West Brom battling it out for the top half. At the beginning of the season I would of been pleased to simply avoid that scrap.

 

Expectation has undeniably changed given our position in the top seven, mine included. We've maintianed our league standing for a large majority of the season with barely a challange from anyone below, perhaps Stoke during our blip. To finish outside that top seven now would be undeniably disappointing regardless of any previous expectations.

 

For me anything on top of that would be an absolute bonus, the very fact we're punching our weight with the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool is an achievement in itself. Despite our progress this season the three of them still have much larger squads packed with more quality, players such as Simpson, Perch and Shola would get no where near those sides, we still have a long way to go before we have that kind of strength in depth.

 

I think some have lost sight of where we are as a work in progress. Yes the three aforementioned sides are having somewhat disappointing seasons but they've still pulled away with realtive ease, the only difference being we're right up there with them. For a squad containing seven or eight players of real class mixed with a lot of dross that's a cracking season. Obvisouly it isn't over yet, but if we maintian our current standing it would be a very impressive achievement, in my eyes at least.

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