Ronaldo Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Shola's utter crud, but he gives you something to aim for in the knowledge it won't come straight back, unlike anyone else in the squad, basically. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mole_Toonfan Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Everyone talks about work rate with Ben Arfa but it really isn't the reason Pardew dropped him. He was dropped because of his lack productivity with the ball I still state it wasn't all his fault but still.... Remy is hardly a work horse but he's producing so no one cares. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The College Dropout Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Shola's utter crud, but he gives you something to aim for in the knowledge it won't come straight back, unlike anyone else in the squad, basically. Bang on the money. There's a modicum of hope that the ball will stick up there for a bit. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanji Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Shola's utter crud, but he gives you something to aim for in the knowledge it won't come straight back, unlike anyone else in the squad, basically. Bang on the money. There's a modicum of hope that the ball will stick up there for a bit. I see the reasoning there Just think perhaps at home, the Ben Arfa effect for the match > hope the ball sticks to Shola for a bit. The latter making more sense away from home though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronaldo Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Fwiw I'd rather have Hatem out there on one of his worst days than Shola. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Haris Vuckic Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 I'd have Hatem reading the Great Gatsby out-loud in a smoking jacket with a pipe full of bubbles before Shola. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanji Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 I think it would be the best time to bring him back, after the international break, into the 11 and playing along-side or behind Remy up top if we are to persist with 2 banks of 4 in defense & midfield. Team on the back of 2 big wins, players in form, crowd up for it, workman mentality and unity built within those lads who've played the last 2 matches -- he's enter a positive first team 11 where he's not required to do everything. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRon Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Shola's utter crud, but he gives you something to aim for in the knowledge it won't come straight back, unlike anyone else in the squad, basically. What about the idea of playing Gouffran up front? Some seem to think he can hold the ball up pretty well, but I can't see that when we launch the ball long, which we still do quite a lot despite what others might think. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teasy Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 ben Arfa was a liability for a decent number of games before he started getting moved around.... he only got moved around because he is a liability. Man City, West Ham, Fulham, Villa, Hull Those are the games he played before Pardew started to move him around. What are the decent number of games out of those where he was a liability? He was arguably our best player out of four of those 5 (not difficult vs Man City but still) and certainly won us both games against Villa and Fulham. He had one bad game in his preferred position against Hull where he provided little and cost us a goal. Since then he's been moved to the left (where he doesn't play well ever basically) and then up front by himself. So you could say he was a liability in one game out of five before he started getting moved around. As I said against a team where the primary goal is to close down fast and hit on the break its a fair decision to leave him out at the moment (though their's no way in hell bringing Obertan on ahead of him was ever a good idea either against Chelsea or even worse against Spurs). But against a side that'll sit back and challenge us to break them down we need him in the team and in his preferred position. A position where he's won us games basically on his own in the past, against teams that were just sitting back and challenging us to break them down. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ_NUFC Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 These Pardew cup-suppers have drunk the koolaid far too thirstily when it comes to his treatment of HBA. "Liability," fuck's sake. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Crooks Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 These Pardew cup-suppers have drunk the koolaid far too thirstily when it comes to his treatment of HBA. "Liability," fuck's sake. http://i.imgur.com/MpoJiGb.gif Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ_NUFC Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliottman Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 These Pardew cup-suppers have drunk the koolaid far too thirstily when it comes to his treatment of HBA. "Liability," f***'s sake. Its TCD - you'll get used to him. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliottman Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 ben Arfa was a liability for a decent number of games before he started getting moved around.... he only got moved around because he is a liability. Man City, West Ham, Fulham, Villa, Hull Those are the games he played before Pardew started to move him around. What are the decent number of games out of those where he was a liability? He was arguably our best player out of four of those 5 (not difficult vs Man City but still) and certainly won us both games against Villa and Fulham. He had one bad game in his preferred position against Hull where he provided little and cost us a goal. Since then he's been moved to the left (where he doesn't play well ever basically) and then up front by himself. So you could say he was a liability in one game out of five before he started getting moved around. As I said against a team where the primary goal is to close down fast and hit on the break its a fair decision to leave him out at the moment (though their's no way in hell bringing Obertan on ahead of him was ever a good idea either against Chelsea or even worse against Spurs). But against a side that'll sit back and challenge us to break them down we need him in the team and in his preferred position. A position where he's won us games basically on his own in the past, against teams that were just sitting back and challenging us to break them down. Thats garbage TCD. As rightly pointed out, he had a bad game against Hull where he'd been clearly earmarked as our danger man, and was marked out of the game. Unfortunately our genius of a manager couldn't exploit this. He was unreal against Villa, won us the game at Fulham. I'm HBA biggest fan but there was something up with him that day against Hull mind. I think its the worst I've seen him play for us. How you go from the performance against Villa to the one against Hull is beyond me. But, apart from that and maybe Everton, he's been fine. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrmojorisin75 Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 unless i was watching something different elliotman HBA was fine for about the first 15 minutes or so of the hull game, carried on pretty well from villa i thought...after we scored bruce shut our entire right side down and ben arfa was completely crowded out for the rest of the match as santoon rightly says pardew should have either been able to exploit this extra attention elsewhere in our team or move ben arfa to get him away from the attention, it was laughable what he was being expected to beat that day, stood no fucking chance and his manager didn't help in the slightest i also thought that day that neither HBA nor remy provided cover to their fullbacks, remy maybe a little more, but it seemed tactical to me to an extent like pardew wanted an actual front 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledGeordie Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 unless i was watching something different elliotman HBA was fine for about the first 15 minutes or so of the hull game, carried on pretty well from villa i thought...after we scored bruce shut our entire right side down and ben arfa was completely crowded out for the rest of the match as santoon rightly says pardew should have either been able to exploit this extra attention elsewhere in our team or move ben arfa to get him away from the attention, it was laughable what he was being expected to beat that day, stood no f***ing chance and his manager didn't help in the slightest i also thought that day that neither HBA nor remy provided cover to their fullbacks, remy maybe a little more, but it seemed tactical to me to an extent like pardew wanted an actual front 3 I agree with Elliotman on HBAs Hull performance. They were all shit for the most that day but I sat in the Gallowgate bewildered at HBAs poor effort, poor control and horrific passing. Every facet of his game went to shit. I still think he's carrying too much weight so not sure what's gone on there, combo of too much weights and poor diet? Looked much leaner in recent times. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Spark Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 unless i was watching something different elliotman HBA was fine for about the first 15 minutes or so of the hull game, carried on pretty well from villa i thought...after we scored bruce shut our entire right side down and ben arfa was completely crowded out for the rest of the match as santoon rightly says pardew should have either been able to exploit this extra attention elsewhere in our team or move ben arfa to get him away from the attention, it was laughable what he was being expected to beat that day, stood no fucking chance and his manager didn't help in the slightest i also thought that day that neither HBA nor remy provided cover to their fullbacks, remy maybe a little more, but it seemed tactical to me to an extent like pardew wanted an actual front 3 Hatem couldn't control the ball that day, man. Barely looked like a footballer. It's absurd to blame that on being "crowded out". Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliottman Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 unless i was watching something different elliotman HBA was fine for about the first 15 minutes or so of the hull game, carried on pretty well from villa i thought...after we scored bruce shut our entire right side down and ben arfa was completely crowded out for the rest of the match as santoon rightly says pardew should have either been able to exploit this extra attention elsewhere in our team or move ben arfa to get him away from the attention, it was laughable what he was being expected to beat that day, stood no f***ing chance and his manager didn't help in the slightest i also thought that day that neither HBA nor remy provided cover to their fullbacks, remy maybe a little more, but it seemed tactical to me to an extent like pardew wanted an actual front 3 Hatem couldn't control the ball that day, man. Barely looked like a footballer. It's absurd to blame that on being "crowded out". Pardew is to blame for a lot of things in recent times but that wasnt one of them. He was just dreadful. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrmojorisin75 Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 yeah he did look poor, i agree, but he was still causing them problems until the tactical changes by bruce... as always with these things (such as the tiote thread) i'm sure it was a combination of factors in the hull game but it's equally absurd to ignore the actual football match and just say he was shit that day, didn't look like a footballer Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The College Dropout Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 He was also a liability in his 45 minutes against Everton. There's many factors to our recent decent form at the back. Not playing HBA in midfield is one of them. No coincidence Debuchy now looks a player without HBA. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrettNUFC Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 Even though Ben Arfa got the blame for the 3rd for not tracking hard enough, there was no excuse for the Hull player to have a 10 yard radius of space on the edge of the box. Our whole midfield went missing. Was just a shocking performance all around, players and manager combined. You've still got to fancy still that we will actually come up with a gameplan to break Norwich down and execute it giving the form our players are in. Confidence must be very high at the moment, and that's a huge factor for us. Ben Arfa man of the match performance, 2-0 is my prediction. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrmojorisin75 Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 He was also a liability in his 45 minutes against Everton. There's many factors to our recent decent form at the back. Not playing HBA in midfield is one of them. No coincidence Debuchy now looks a player without HBA. that really is a fair point mind Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronaldo Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 Just a shame that as per usual we weren't prepared to buy a player fit for the purpose of getting the best out of our existing lot. Such a shortsighted approach. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobody Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 He was also a liability in his 45 minutes against Everton. There's many factors to our recent decent form at the back. Not playing HBA in midfield is one of them. No coincidence Debuchy now looks a player without HBA. What utter bollocks, he wasn't any worse than any of the other shite on the pitch that game. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrmojorisin75 Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 what do you mean, instead of debuchy we should have signed a more solid RB who didn't necessarily need as much assistance? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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