Alan Pardew

[Wullie]

I hate that word in football, stability. It doesn't even mean anything. Surely being two places off relegation with four games to go is the very definition of unstable.

 

For every Man United, there's a Chelsea, for Arsenal there's Spurs. Fucking Bayern Munich have been through a manager a year for the past six frigging years, and we think we're the clever ones for putting an idiot in charge and giving him a long contract. Jesus fucking Christ man.

 

EDIT: Bayern not quite that bad, I counted caretakers, but still one every couple of seasons.

[midds]

Imagine if we hadn't signed them man, just imagine. We'd genuinely have been down weeks ago with a squad that finished 5th last time.

 

And some people still want him to stay.

 

Currently having an ongoing discussion with a bloke at work about this. He reckons all of his mates are all coming round to my way of thinking and all want him out after previously being behind him. He can't understand it and his only defence of Pardew seems to consist of "well the next bloke they hire may be worse". That's it. His only remaining reason for not pulling the trigger is that the replacement may be worse.

 

Mentally ill tbh.

 

I have debates with a lad I know, season ticket holder, home and away, never misses. He's a Pardew fan and his usual reasoning for shooting me down is 'stability', which is crazy.

 

However, his latest point was 'like fuck is this as bad as teh relegation season, we've been far worse off than this', as if that is a reason to keep a manager? wtf is wrong with these people?

 

Yeah I've had that one and actually used Wullie's financially stable = always in overdraft analogy and he still didn't get it. Being absolutely dogshit is something that should provoke change not endorse stability.

 

We've been terrible and have moved backwards as a club. Let's keep everything the same and do nothing. Everything's going in the wrong direction - winning less, losing more, scoring less, shipping more, plummeting down the league, performances are rank and the manager isn't capable of doing a fucking thing to halt it.

 

But let's keep him in charge for the sake of stability. It's madness and it'll get worse the longer he stays. He needs to fucking go, man. 

[Guest neesy111]

Going from 5th to potentially 17th is not fucking stability especially when we spent 30M in between it.

[Wullie]

I can only assume a lot of people felt quite embarrassed at the reputation we got for chopping and changing managers so often, binning them four games in etc.

 

Couldn't care less me, more bothered about being able to win games. If they're clearly not the right man, bin them, regardless of whether you figure that after fifteen games or five hundred.

[Dave]

Another thought on Ashley's reasoning here.

 

Players are signed on very long contracts to protect them as assets. But when the assets are now decreasing in value - surely he must be concerned?

 

I thought this was a good and summarizing piece on all that has gone on this year. Also raises some questions. Did someone on here write it?

 

http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/newcastleunited/id/818?cc=5739

 

Interesting to see Mark Douglas retweet it.

[Guest firetotheworks]

I hate that word in football, stability. It doesn't even mean anything. Surely being two places off relegation with four games to go is the very definition of unstable.

 

For every Man United, there's a Chelsea, for Arsenal there's Spurs. f***ing Bayern Munich have been through a manager a year for the past six frigging years, and we think we're the clever ones for putting an idiot in charge and giving him a long contract. Jesus f***ing Christ man.

 

Nah, I disagree. All of the teams that you've mentioned there can negate stability by throwing money at the problem and can still fail, relatively speaking. Stability for us/Everton/Villa etc is clearly important to an extent if you can see things are going in the right direction, you have the right manager, or there are genuine, substantial factors that are out of control and can be attributed to under-performances.

 

I don't think there's any need to look past Pardew just simply being completely the wrong manager. Stability means something, it just means nothing if, for example, it's the equivalent of your parents fighting every day but staying unhappily married.

[Guest neesy111]

The thing is with the set-up of Carr and our scouting network, you can change managers and still have stability within the personnel within reason.

[Gallowgate Toon]

Bird's received a load of feedback on Twitter for that crap article, lots of mentions of set pieces, Cabaye/Sissoko, sitting on leads. It's good that these are being highlighted, particularly the latter 2, hopefully some relevant questions will be asked come Thursday.

[Wullie]

I hate that word in football, stability. It doesn't even mean anything. Surely being two places off relegation with four games to go is the very definition of unstable.

 

For every Man United, there's a Chelsea, for Arsenal there's Spurs. f***ing Bayern Munich have been through a manager a year for the past six frigging years, and we think we're the clever ones for putting an idiot in charge and giving him a long contract. Jesus f***ing Christ man.

 

Nah, I disagree. All of the teams that you've mentioned there can negate stability by throwing money at the problem and can still fail, relatively speaking. Stability for us/Everton/Villa etc is clearly important to an extent if you can see things are going in the right direction, you have the right manager, or there are genuine, substantial factors that are out of control and can be attributed to under-performances.

 

I don't think there's any need to look past Pardew just simply being completely the wrong manager. Stability means something, it just means nothing if, for example, it's the equivalent of your parents fighting every day but staying unhappily married.

 

I'm not sure Spurs fall into that category.

[Hanshithispantz]

Imagine if we hadn't signed them man, just imagine. We'd genuinely have been down weeks ago with a squad that finished 5th last time.

 

And some people still want him to stay.

It's genuinely frightening to think about that. No doubt we'd be alongside Wigan at the most imo.

[Hanshithispantz]

Imagine if we hadn't signed them man, just imagine. We'd genuinely have been down weeks ago with a squad that finished 5th last time.

 

And some people still want him to stay.

 

Currently having an ongoing discussion with a bloke at work about this. He reckons all of his mates are all coming round to my way of thinking and all want him out after previously being behind him. He can't understand it and his only defence of Pardew seems to consist of "well the next bloke they hire may be worse". That's it. His only remaining reason for not pulling the trigger is that the replacement may be worse.

 

Mentally ill tbh.

 

Most of my mates on Facebook seem to want to keep him like, not sure why.  London-based ones don't though.  Not sure what the craic is here.

Aye, I have a canny few who not only want to keep him but keep on prattling on about everyone else being fickle. I have to bite my tongue (or just, err, not type) as I really cannot be fucked with Facebook arguments so just let them get on with it. Ironically they're loudest right after one of Pardew's rare victories and have been pretty quiet since the mackem thrashing.

[Hanshithispantz]

Just seen this Pardew quote on twitter, RE Tiote.

 

"There is so much more to come from him if we can get him out of just popping it off safely."

Aye he basically said that along with something else about him being our Essien. I don't want to lay all of blame for Tiote's form on Pardew mind but it hardly reads well.

[TRon]

Imagine if we hadn't signed them man, just imagine. We'd genuinely have been down weeks ago with a squad that finished 5th last time.

 

And some people still want him to stay.

 

You think that's bad? Even after spending all that money, if Cisse hadn't scored that winner in the 3rd minute of injury time against Fulham we'd be facing relegation. Even now we have doubts, but to consider we are in this position with a team full of internationals is scandalous tbh.

[pi_D]

I hate that word in football, stability. It doesn't even mean anything. Surely being two places off relegation with four games to go is the very definition of unstable.

 

For every Man United, there's a Chelsea, for Arsenal there's Spurs. f***ing Bayern Munich have been through a manager a year for the past six frigging years, and we think we're the clever ones for putting an idiot in charge and giving him a long contract. Jesus f***ing Christ man.

 

Nah, I disagree. All of the teams that you've mentioned there can negate stability by throwing money at the problem and can still fail, relatively speaking. Stability for us/Everton/Villa etc is clearly important to an extent if you can see things are going in the right direction, you have the right manager, or there are genuine, substantial factors that are out of control and can be attributed to under-performances.

 

I don't think there's any need to look past Pardew just simply being completely the wrong manager. Stability means something, it just means nothing if, for example, it's the equivalent of your parents fighting every day but staying unhappily married.

 

I'm not sure Spurs fall into that category.

 

Spurs have had stability for years now, mainly boardroom stability. They had a wage cap and sold their best players before getting cl and solidifying their success and spending more money. Even then they lost modric.

 

These things take time, and a vision that lasts longer than two seasons..... Only slightly longer though as I think pardew will be replaced soon enough. Ashley wants success.

[Dave]

As it was, this rot-stopping point rounded off a difficult week for the manager that at times he did little to alleviate. Calling criticism of his side's worst derby defeat since 1979 "heavy-handed" was neither helpful or accurate, with neither the press or supporters guilty of any significant movement against him.

 

For him to comment on what he obviously deemed as unfair comments directed towards him though does show the singular lack of negative coverage/abuse so far this season. For a combination of reasons he's a had a smooth ride so far, as people variously took on board calls for unity and stability, showed patience and understanding with player recruitment and availability issues and clung to the hope of an end to our trophy drought via the Europa League.

 

If he wants to know what heavy-handed means round here, phone calls to the likes of Graeme Souness (bedsheet protests at Man City) and Glenn Roeder (season tickets thrown on the pitch at home to Blackburn) while John Carver will be able to supply chapter and verse on the spectacular vote of no confidence in Bobby Robson at home to Wolves shown by the mass fan walkout.

 

And quite why he felt the need to rake over the ashes of the derby defeat in his pre-Baggies press conference was unclear, his needless comment about mackem envy of our Europa League involvement inevitably seized upon by the press.

 

It's a tricky line to get the derby games right in terms of their significance: not leaving oneself open to charges of underplaying the importance of the occasion (as Ruud Gullit did with his infamous unfavourable comparison with the Milan set-to's) or going to the other extreme and hamming it up as if the world was about to end. I don't give a toss whether we finish above them. 

 

Over-egging the pudding prompted the departure of Steve "agent" Bruce from the mackems, with his Geordie ancestry ultimately outweighed by a fixation with losing to us.

 

The manager isn't alone in talking nonsense in the wake of the mackem loss though - some crass questioning directed at Jonas Gutierrez resulting in his agreeing that this had been the worst week of his time as the club. Worse than relegation? Don't talk bloody rubbish man!

 

It's in the area of team selection though that more and more fans are expressing disquiet. There seemed little wrong with Haidara when he was dragged off here to allow Jonas another chance to reprise the left back role that had aided our demise last Sunday, while Gouffran's continuing inability to play for more than an hour just baffles us - and don't forget that he wasn't eligible for Europe.   

 

Yet again were prompted to ask, just what is Vurnon Anita's intended role? What circumstance requires his input to resolve? Chasing a goal, defending a lead, you tell us. Having failed to sell anyone in pre-season, our entire £8m transfer budget went on him. Baffling.     

 

There was some additional concern about Sissoko and Cabaye, who both lost the plot in the closing stages of this game. The former was lucky not to receive a second booking for dissent, while the captain almost downed tools before going off, hardly leading by example - or in fact, leading at all.

 

And while we're not suggesting that Gabriel Obertan's treble for the reserves on Friday night should have resulted in his recall (the expression too little, too late comes to mind), it does raise the question of quite what benefit rookie Adam Campbell is getting from his perpetual role as an unused substitute, aside from filling the bench.

 

A cynic could be forgiven for wondering whether the young forward's Geordie roots mean that he's serving some sort of obscure purpose for the manager by being bracketed in with the first team. A lack of reserve team games in the last two months though seems like stagnation to us, enforced idleness a rather odd reward for earlier endeavour. 

 

It's beyond doubt that injuries and an increased workload have adversely affected our season. Having established those factors however, other questions over selection, training, coaching and fitness remain unanswered - with an increasing cynicism over the level of injuries and the variable accuracy over return dates (poor Ryan Taylor excepted).

 

As we've written on these pages too often over the years, we're on the final lap and in some distress, staggering towards the finishing line. This season is proving to be no exception.

[loki679]

Spot on from .com there.  The Gouffran one is baffling considering he keeps banging on about our players being tired and the Gouff should be one of our freshest having missed the EL campaign.

 

Gotta have a bit of Shola though I guess.....

[mattypnufc]

Maybes they should install one of these...you know...just to get the basics right such as passing the ball 10 yards accurately.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU9EzFBBCiA

 

[Disco]

Not a single piece of that .com article I don't agree with.

[joeyt]

Aye, thats a good piece

[Beren]

Excellent from .com

[Skeletor]

Was reading the .com match report for the 2-0 over Liverpool last year and found this gem:

 

"If someone said, ’You are going to be in the Europa League’, I would snap their hands off. We've been 10 points ahead of the group below us all season and we need to see it home, we want to take this club into Europe - the fans deserve it. It will be a disappointment if we don't get there now.

 

How quickly things changed the minute we were actually in Europe.

[Ronaldo]

He contradicted himself a short time later when he said that he was torn over whether he wanted us to get into Europe. Maybe he was told there'd be fuck all to spend on making the squad bigger?

[Dr Venkman]

I doubt they'd tell him whether there was or not.

[Cronky]

As we've written on these pages too often over the years, we're on the final lap and in some distress, staggering towards the finishing line. This season is proving to be no exception.

 

... is food for thought.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Was reading the .com match report for the 2-0 over Liverpool last year and found this gem:

 

"If someone said, ’You are going to be in the Europa League’, I would snap their hands off. We've been 10 points ahead of the group below us all season and we need to see it home, we want to take this club into Europe - the fans deserve it. It will be a disappointment if we don't get there now.

 

How quickly things changed the minute we were actually in Europe.

 

Happens to almost every club in our position.