Alan Pardew

[AyeDubbleYoo]

"The best form of defence is attack" is basically a meaningless cliche that doesn't have any weight in this argument. Our biggest strength this season has been our compactness, work rate and willingness to battle for points. I would personally love to see a better style of football, but surely everyone can see why Pardew is reluctant to suddenly chuck what has worked for him so far.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Nothing Pardew has served up is remotely comparable to Allardyce, I wanted to kill myself when he was in charge.

 

For 30 or so minutes yesterday where it went like this I'd beg to disagree:

 

Krul - hoof - mackem header wins ball, they attack we clear our lines - hoof. Repeat repeat repeat.

 

We were fucking awful yesterday and its more depressing given the quality of our players, players with the attributes to play really good football.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I agree our football hasn't been great at times, but Allardyce was on a whole other level of institutional shiteness. He wasn't just conservative, he actively hated the sport of football.

[Hughesy]

Nothing Pardew has served up is remotely comparable to Allardyce, I wanted to kill myself when he was in charge.

 

For 30 or so minutes yesterday where it went like this I'd beg to disagree:

 

Krul - hoof - mackem header wins ball, they attack we clear our lines - hoof. Repeat repeat repeat.

 

We were f***ing awful yesterday and its more depressing given the quality of our players, players with the attributes to play really good football.

 

We played well in the second half.  The first half and the last few games have not been representative of the way we have played this season.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

"The best form of defence is attack" is basically a meaningless cliche that doesn't have any weight in this argument. Our biggest strength this season has been our compactness, work rate and willingness to battle for points. I would personally love to see a better style of football, but surely everyone can see why Pardew is reluctant to suddenly chuck what has worked for him so far.

 

There is zero compactness to our game whatsoever, its rigid turgid shit, long balls from all over the park, even Ba was resorting to it whenever he dropped deep.

 

The old saying of "the best form of defence is attack" is an old cliche but its true. If you attack the opposition you will create chances, chances to score goals which win you games. You also keep the opposition away from your own goal which limits their goalscoring chances. It really is that simple. Of course its not as simple to put into practice but its not fucking rocket scienec either.

 

I cant tell you how much it boils my piss to see a player hoof the ball aimlessley. Pardew should be tearing his hair out on the touchiline and fining players for some of the hit and hop stuff we punt but its obviously a tactic of his and something he not only encourages but believes in massively.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

I agree our football hasn't been great at times, but Allardyce was on a whole other level of institutional shiteness. He wasn't just conservative, he actively hated the sport of football.

 

It wasn't ALL shite, just like it hasn't all been shite under Pardew but my we play uglly football and between this and Big Sam and even Souenss I'd say its a much of a muchness. Shit ugly football is shit ugly football whatever the umbrella.

[Guest BooBoo]

Nothing Pardew has served up is remotely comparable to Allardyce, I wanted to kill myself when he was in charge.

 

For 30 or so minutes yesterday where it went like this I'd beg to disagree:

 

Krul - hoof - mackem header wins ball, they attack we clear our lines - hoof. Repeat repeat repeat.

 

We were fucking awful yesterday and its more depressing given the quality of our players, players with the attributes to play really good football.

 

Your ludicrous OTT criticism, really undermines a lot of your points, many of which are valid. We were poor first half and constantly threatening in the second.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Nothing Pardew has served up is remotely comparable to Allardyce, I wanted to kill myself when he was in charge.

 

For 30 or so minutes yesterday where it went like this I'd beg to disagree:

 

Krul - hoof - mackem header wins ball, they attack we clear our lines - hoof. Repeat repeat repeat.

 

We were f***ing awful yesterday and its more depressing given the quality of our players, players with the attributes to play really good football.

 

We played well in the second half.  The first half and the last few games have not been representative of the way we have played this season.

 

Oh it has. The second half is the kind of football we have seldomly played this season where as the first IS.

[SEMTEX]

Nothing Pardew has served up is remotely comparable to Allardyce, I wanted to kill myself when he was in charge.

 

For 30 or so minutes yesterday where it went like this I'd beg to disagree:

 

Krul - hoof - mackem header wins ball, they attack we clear our lines - hoof. Repeat repeat repeat.

 

We were fucking awful yesterday and its more depressing given the quality of our players, players with the attributes to play really good football.

 

Your ludicrous OTT criticism, really undermines a lot of your points, many of which are valid. We were poor first half and constantly threatening in the second.

 

 

Though he's definitely not the only one to do this. And this trait is most certainly not restricted to football alone.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Nothing Pardew has served up is remotely comparable to Allardyce, I wanted to kill myself when he was in charge.

 

For 30 or so minutes yesterday where it went like this I'd beg to disagree:

 

Krul - hoof - mackem header wins ball, they attack we clear our lines - hoof. Repeat repeat repeat.

 

We were f***ing awful yesterday and its more depressing given the quality of our players, players with the attributes to play really good football.

 

Your ludicrous OTT criticism, really undermines a lot of your points, many of which are valid. We were poor first half and constantly threatening in the second.

 

Give over man, given the occassion and the quality we have, to - for 30 minutes or so -  kick it long whenever we got on the ball be it from Krul, the defence, the wide players and even Ba - is as bad as it gets and was some of the worst stuff I've seen us play. Hundreds around me were all saying similar."Big Sam would be proud of this" was a common comment example and whenever Krul launched it long which he did all game, there was massive groans.

 

It used to be nothing was as bad as Souness but now its nothing is as bad as Big Sam. I say bull shit. Watch 30 minutes in the first half of yesterday and that's as bad as anything he served up, especially given the players we have.

[madras]

Get used to HTT man, he hates pardew and will only give him credit to prove he doesn't slag him off all the time but the overriding theme is obvious.

[Wullie]

Nothing Pardew has served up is remotely comparable to Allardyce, I wanted to kill myself when he was in charge.

 

For 30 or so minutes yesterday where it went like this I'd beg to disagree:

 

Krul - hoof - mackem header wins ball, they attack we clear our lines - hoof. Repeat repeat repeat.

 

We were f***ing awful yesterday and its more depressing given the quality of our players, players with the attributes to play really good football.

 

We played well in the second half.  The first half and the last few games have not been representative of the way we have played this season.

 

It's getting there though. We've been hitting the long ball and setting up more and more negatively every week since around the middle of December. With Man Utd the obvious and glaring exception, our performances since the Chelsea game have been dismal. It's to our credit that we've still managed to pick up points in that period but some of the winning performances have been incredibly poor. The excuse a few weeks ago was the absence of the central midfield but nothing has changed, in fact I'd say it's gotten worse.

 

We seldom try to pass the ball through midfield or have the wide players make any forward runs into space. It's become all about protecting the back four and we've got big problems if they really need protecting when 2-0 up at home to Wolves.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Get used to HTT man, he hates pardew and will only give him credit to prove he doesn't slag him off all the time but the overriding theme is obvious.

 

I don't hate him as much as I hate his bull s*** and his football.

 

I called him first and I'll be proved right. This isn't me trying to be some kind of sage shamen or something and I wont be happy when I'm proved right but f*** me its staring everyone in the face but our position seems to be blinding many. No side or manager will ever be successful playing the way we do and top players will never shine with such tactics. Pardew from day one has not changed the way we play and its actually getting progressively worse despite our players getting better.

[Parky]

Nothing Pardew has served up is remotely comparable to Allardyce, I wanted to kill myself when he was in charge.

 

For 30 or so minutes yesterday where it went like this I'd beg to disagree:

 

Krul - hoof - mackem header wins ball, they attack we clear our lines - hoof. Repeat repeat repeat.

 

We were f***ing awful yesterday and its more depressing given the quality of our players, players with the attributes to play really good football.

 

Your ludicrous OTT criticism, really undermines a lot of your points, many of which are valid. We were poor first half and constantly threatening in the second.

 

Give over man, given the occassion and the quality we have, to - for 30 minutes or so -  kick it long whenever we got on the ball be it from Krul, the defence, the wide players and even Ba - is as bad as it gets and was some of the worst stuff I've seen us play. Hundreds around me were all saying similar."Big Sam would be proud of this" was a common comment example and whenever Krul launched it long which he did all game, there was massive groans.

 

It used to be nothing was as bad as Souness but now its nothing is as bad as Big Sam. I say bull shit. Watch 30 minutes in the first half of yesterday and that's as bad as anything he served up, especially given the players we have.

 

What is it? Is it prozone or prozac?

[colinmk]

For me it boils down to this - we are sixth playing god awful football. What position could we achieve playing better football? Given the quality of our footballers It would be no stretch of the imagination at all to claim we could do much better.

 

Which footballers? We have a keeper who doesn't distribute the ball well, a CB who can barely be idenitfied as a footballer, a full back who falls into the same category, a winger who seldom creates, and a CM that sit deep and don't penetrate - even when we do keep the ball down.

 

These are all player who are absolutely guaranteed a start, btw, and through no fault of Pardew. Stop implying we have this wonderful footballing side who've been restricted to 3rd - 7th all season by negative tactics.

 

Krul's distribution will be poor when he is instructed to simply punt it forwards. That's down to Pardew as is the fact our CM's sit too deep. This was in evidence yesterday. When Shola came on he went straight to Tiote and then Cabaye with instructions. The result... Tiote dropped deeper by 10-20 yards and Cabaye was shunted wider towards Jonas which left a huge gap in between our defence and attack and thus allowed ssunderland to come out with the ball into space when they won it back. If Tiote and Cabaye had of been further forward and not so deep or so wide, when sunderland came away with the ball, they would have ran into those two and for us, on the ball we would have had something in the middle. Such clueless tactics from the manager.

 

Sinton isn't the best full-back in the world but he's the least of our problems and even then, playing Ryan Taylor in front of him or Obertan instead of Ben Arfa, one of our best players, is stupid and has shown to be a negative move.

 

Again I'll highlight just how tactically inept your man is. He selects Ryan Taylor wide right to help protect Simposn ahead of Ben Arfa, Fair enough, but Pardew is also worried about the centre so he instructs Taylor to play more narrow, more closer to Cabaye and Tiote than closer to the flank. The result? Simposn had no-one to play the ball to wide right or had any chances to overlap. defensively, because taylor was often in the centre or closer to there, sunderland could get at Simpson.

 

So defensively and attacking wise, this was a poor move. Ben Arfa's introduction pinned back the sunderland flank and allowed Simposn to actually move up the pitch himself. As a result the mackems attacke our flank less and we attacked theirs more, Simposn actually linking up well with Ben Arfa and even putting in two decent crosses.

 

Best form of defence is always attack.

 

As for Jonas, I assume that's who you are refering to. He may not be high on the goals scored or goals created chart but he is our only real outlet and as such, is a key player for us. He drove and drove at the mackems and caused them all kinds of problems. he creates a lot for us in terms of not so much direct goalscoring opportunities or goals scored but with his running which pins players back, opens up space and generally drags our sorry arses massively up the pitch. Again, if you're in the opposition half they are not in yours meaning they cannot score.

 

We have excellent players. We have arguably the best performing 'keeper in the league, certainly the one with the most promise. In Colo we have one of the best centre-backs who would walk into all but perhaps Man City's defence. Santon is a very good attacking full-back with huge potential. Cabaye and Tiote are really good players, easily a top 6 pairing where as Ben Arfa has all the ability in the world. Jonas is a very good outlet and Ba and Cisse are both goalscorers and in Ba's case, a top all-round centre-forward.

 

Further into the squad we have good youngsters in Ferguson, Sammy Ameobi, Abied etc. and in Guthrie, Williamson, Best and Shola, adequate back-up.

 

In short we have a very good first-time and a decent enough squad. Much better than say Villa, Spurs, Everton, Stoke, Fulham, Swansea, Norwich et al.

 

This is the best side we've had since Sir Bobby and indeed the best squad.

 

The fact a player of Ben Arfa's ability cannot get in ahead of the likes of Ryan Taylor is criminal and akin to starting Shola ahead of Ba or Williamson ahead of Colo.

 

The fact our midfield is constantly being bypassed by the long ball is also criminal as is the how deep we sit and how far the gap is between midfield and attack.

 

That's Pardew's tactics for you though, an area where he's as clueless as Roeder, Big Sam or Souness ever were.

 

Great post. The fact that he hasn't even attempted to change it in how many games says it all too.

[SEMTEX]

Get used to HTT man, he hates pardew and will only give him credit to prove he doesn't slag him off all the time but the overriding theme is obvious.

 

I don't hate him as much as I hate his bull s*** and his football.

 

I called him first and I'll be proved right. This isn't me trying to be some kind of sage shamen or something and I wont be happy when I'm proved right but f*** me its staring everyone in the face but our position seems to be blinding many. No side or manager will ever be successful playing the way we do and top players will never shine with such tactics. Pardew from day one has not changed the way we play and its actually getting progressively worse despite our players getting better.

 

I'm looking forward to the day you're proved right, and Pards is fired. I just want to see our world class XI reaching their Champions League potential. It'll warm my heart to see Danny Simpson roving down the right wing in the San Siro. The Rossoneri will be having flashbacks to the glory days of Cafu.

[gbandit]

HTT is talking a lot of sense.don't know what your wpm is HTT but it must be pretty high.pardew has gone from a very convincing start for me to an unconvincing last three months.the signs were there even when we did amazingly well at the start of the season but now the results are matching performances.let's see him change his ways in the last 11 games and we can evaluate at the end of te season but if nothing changes I will not expect much next season

[Parky]

Personally don't think he will change the system, it can also be argued he doesn't really have the players to change it to a more fluid 433. What he can do however is cut out the nonsense like hoofing from the back and get the side to move up the pitch together with short passes. This is the very least one can expect from professional footballers? Non?

[Hughesy]

Nothing Pardew has served up is remotely comparable to Allardyce, I wanted to kill myself when he was in charge.

 

For 30 or so minutes yesterday where it went like this I'd beg to disagree:

 

Krul - hoof - mackem header wins ball, they attack we clear our lines - hoof. Repeat repeat repeat.

 

We were f***ing awful yesterday and its more depressing given the quality of our players, players with the attributes to play really good football.

 

We played well in the second half.  The first half and the last few games have not been representative of the way we have played this season.

 

It's getting there though. We've been hitting the long ball and setting up more and more negatively every week since around the middle of December. With Man Utd the obvious and glaring exception, our performances since the Chelsea game have been dismal. It's to our credit that we've still managed to pick up points in that period but some of the winning performances have been incredibly poor. The excuse a few weeks ago was the absence of the central midfield but nothing has changed, in fact I'd say it's gotten worse.

 

We seldom try to pass the ball through midfield or have the wide players make any forward runs into space. It's become all about protecting the back four and we've got big problems if they really need protecting when 2-0 up at home to Wolves.

 

I would agree that performances have gradually got worse since the Chelsea game.  I genuinely think that Pardew was a bit rattled by that defeat and the loss of Saylor has not helped.  Genuinely think we will see a better brand of football for the rest of this season.  But we shall see.  I realise many will not share my sentiments.

 

[Wullie]

Nothing Pardew has served up is remotely comparable to Allardyce, I wanted to kill myself when he was in charge.

 

For 30 or so minutes yesterday where it went like this I'd beg to disagree:

 

Krul - hoof - mackem header wins ball, they attack we clear our lines - hoof. Repeat repeat repeat.

 

We were f***ing awful yesterday and its more depressing given the quality of our players, players with the attributes to play really good football.

 

We played well in the second half.  The first half and the last few games have not been representative of the way we have played this season.

 

It's getting there though. We've been hitting the long ball and setting up more and more negatively every week since around the middle of December. With Man Utd the obvious and glaring exception, our performances since the Chelsea game have been dismal. It's to our credit that we've still managed to pick up points in that period but some of the winning performances have been incredibly poor. The excuse a few weeks ago was the absence of the central midfield but nothing has changed, in fact I'd say it's gotten worse.

 

We seldom try to pass the ball through midfield or have the wide players make any forward runs into space. It's become all about protecting the back four and we've got big problems if they really need protecting when 2-0 up at home to Wolves.

 

I would agree that performances have gradually got worse since the Chelsea game.  I genuinely think that Pardew was a bit rattled by that defeat and the loss of Saylor has not helped.  Genuinely think we will see a better brand of football for the rest of this season.  But we shall see.  I realise many will not share my sentiments.

 

 

Wish I had your confidence. We've got an extremely tough run of fixtures ahead of us in the next five games and have blown a fantastic chance to put some points on the board in the last two home games by simply being too negative and unwilling to play football, particularly last week, which should have been a real eye-opener. As close to a guaranteed three points as you can get in the Premier League and we barely got over the line with a point.

[Pilko]

The second half yesterday was as good as I've seen an NUFC team peform in ages, even before the sending off. They had that double chance, but that was the only time I can remember them threatening in our box within 45 minutes. For making the change at half-time and introducing Ben Arfa, Pardew deserves some credit - many of the gripes in here have been that he doesn't react to a shit performance quickly enough. He certainly did yesterday, and introduced Shola at the right time too.

 

Basically, first half pathetic. Second half great. At least Pards rectified his mistake; with a bit of luck, we'd have won the game yesterday. Optimist here.

[BottledDog]

Get used to HTT man, he hates pardew and will only give him credit to prove he doesn't slag him off all the time but the overriding theme is obvious.

 

I don't hate him as much as I hate his bull s*** and his football.

 

I called him first and I'll be proved right. This isn't me trying to be some kind of sage shamen or something and I wont be happy when I'm proved right but f*** me its staring everyone in the face but our position seems to be blinding many. No side or manager will ever be successful playing the way we do and top players will never shine with such tactics. Pardew from day one has not changed the way we play and its actually getting progressively worse despite our players getting better.

 

Christ, straight out of the NE5 playbook.

 

For me, Pardew seems extraordinarily passionate about the game and his players (check out his post match on nufc.cock for starters). He prepares and gets the players fighting for the cause (Keegan said at the weekend that he gets the best out of players, but that's maybe a little to much to stomach for some at the moment) who while potentially are as an exciting a bunch as we have had for a long time, are not the world beaters we maybe like to portray at times.

 

I also think he has a style of football that is different to the one we have relied on maybe too much this season. Maybe not quite the tippy tappy some crave, but a kind the players seem to be on board with, and it was something Collocini highlighted in his 'why I signed a new contract' interview. I've certainly heard enough from him picking out and praising the kind of teams and players that play good football to still believe that.

Now, fair enough, there has been some turgid stuff since Christmas, struggling to get even the basics right, never mind to allow us a platform for the likes of HBA to shine, but injury and individual players loss of form has a part to play in this too, and I appreciate it when Pardew holds his hands up occasionally and admits that he (not the players) should have done better.

 

As it stands, Pardew seems a pretty great fit for the club at the moment, and I'm still excited more than wary to see where he might take us in the future. I had a feeling we may fall away at the back end of this season so maybe that cushioned my expectations a little, who knows, but a change in manager is way down on my to-do list for the club.

[Mistle17]

I agree with HTT.

[thomas]

I agree too.  If Pardew was world class and getting the best out of this group week in and week out we'd probably be neck and neck with Spurs in 3rd. 

 

As it stands he's a middling to good manager with us in 6th who has seen his team beaten for pace and on the counter after playing a high line for half the year and has adjusted with a more defensive mindset to consolidate position.  This is an overcorrection and I don't know if he'll ratchet it back or not. 

 

He is not - I repeat he is not - the anti-christ.  I'm pretty sure of that. 

[ATB]

I agree with HTT.