Pardew Out?

[Mick]

 

 

Don't know which of the responses to go with - I'll choose the first one..

 

I do think Pardew should shift the focus towards working on offensive work, but I would imagine that working on opposition weaknesses is something that every single manager does.  They may not place as much emphasis on it as we apparently do, but they will most certainly do it.

 

He should work on the opposition weaknesses, not 80% of the time though.  We don't have time to spend 4 days trying to pick holes in the opposition when we're playing every 3rd or 4th day. 

 

Even if we were only playing once a week it's still far too negative.

 

[High Five o]

My take on it is that we should be careful what to wish for.

I have absolutely zero faith in Ashley appointing a good manager, if Pardew gets the boot.

 

So it probably best to give Pardew more time.

That being said, i really wanted his head on a stick after the last match, but that was my heart "thinking", not brain.

 

[Skeletor]

We're screwed either way. Ashley won't stump up the money required to bolster the squad and, if Pardew is to be believed, will only be to happy to sell our bigger players. If he sacks Pardew he'll scrape the unemployed barrel for the cheapest manager.

[Stuy_O]

 

What has changed then over a close season? He was getting the absolute maximum out of some average players last season, so that suggests to me his man management isn't to bad. Players like Perch and Ryan Taylor, they were complete no hopers before Pardew landed, and he's aided them in reviving their careers. He blended in Davide Santon very well and he's arguably to thank for the maturity Hatem Ben Arfa has shown since getting a regular game. What has suddenly happened in the space of 6 months for them to be playing so utterly crap?

 

If the players are that repulsed by the methods apparently being asked of them then they should say something, and work as a unit to find different solutions. Not just throw the entire blame at the manager. No one is exempt from blame.

 

His big players are all horribly out of form, and the good fortune has deserted them. I personally wont have that its purely down to tactics. Sometimes it's about showing balls and the majority of these players have shown zip in the last month or so. Thats how they got a lot of results last year, through sheer bloody hard work.

 

It's a subtle thing but we might have underestimated the effect on the players of the poor transfer window and what that meant to the big picture ie their idea of what the project was. Things were quite fresh last year Cisse scoring at will Ba playing out left when needed...Hba coming into his own (one of the most gifted players in the league), Perch developing and also the momentum (with no expectations and no pressure).

 

I imagine for the players and this is a wild guess, their personal ambitions were on hold or set aside as they were enjoying winning games and coming close to a CL spot...Even the more direct style of play seemed to make sense and they probably imagined it would change over time (again just what I imagine was going on - could be wrong). Then wham a terrible transfer window and no proper quota of reinforcements for the next climb the next level of the mountain and worse an extra competition as well.

 

Think the pre-season looked  poorly organised (Pards said something like "It will help the admin get practice at booking flights)..with too much traveling and as HTT said earlier no solid blocs of preperation time or drills. With the internationla players arriving a bit tired and having even more time off. Think the whole things could have gone a lot better. Why not go to a purpose built football camp (like German teams do) where there is time and recreation and things can get honed and players can get support of all kind? For someone like Pardew who sells himself on being 'a new kind of manager all forensics and dossiers' it looked like amateur hour.

 

All these subtle little things can work through to the players and I firmly believe their minds weren't in the right place (and still aren't) at the start of the season. Too much backstory unresolved like cheap sci-fi.

 

I think this can't be underestimated, yet some seem to dismiss it as having an effect. Strength in depth is a cliche perhaps but its one of the truest ones out there. Its runs like this where its required, when the current XI has lost its edge. What you say is true, but I think its more a case of the current staff and players feeling sorry for themselves. I don't think Pardew has lost the players, they both just seem pretty stuck in finding a solution.

 

Also and I think this is crucial, is that this is the first time a lot of these players and the manager has had significant pressure on them at this club. Its quite worrying how they have dealt with it so far. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Genuine competition for places is a great motivating factor for a squad, I'm not sure that many clubs really have it though.

[jdckelly]

Genuine competition for places is a great motivating factor for a squad, I'm not sure that many clubs really have it though.

arguably only City and Man Utd really have it, chelsea almost have it except for nothing to properly replace Torres

[Dave]

Massive difference between the competition those clubs have and us having to play clear weak links every week because there's literally nobody else. It's why I can't get mad at Williamson; he's frequently absymal but he was signed as cover in the Championship ffs.

[Stuy_O]

Also the vast majority of the clubs in the league at least showed some purpose in the market this summer, we went backwards. Sends out the wrong messages to the players in my view.

[Dinho lad]

Pardew oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot!

 

 

 

Nah, would still keep him, even though I've never been his biggest fan even last season.

 

No one better, basically.

[ponsaelius]

Stoke fans are calling us fickle linking this thread on their forums, I'm sure we don't care but think it's the general perception of other fans, and kinda perpetuates the image our support has.

 

Cliche-tastic on there.

 

the fans think that they have the squad to compete for the title

 

Aye, if you say so.

 

It's almost nice. There was a void in my life without those cliches, I'm glad to have them back.

[Guest neesy111]

I feel sorry for Pardew that it has went soo wrong in such a short space of time.

[Disco]

Genuine competition for places is a great motivating factor for a squad, I'm not sure that many clubs really have it though.

arguably only City and Man Utd really have it, chelsea almost have it except for nothing to properly replace Torres

 

Loads of teams have it man, maybe not to a top class quality but a fair few clubs can mix it up in terms of personel without the quality taking a wild drop in quality.

 

Our so called rivals of Everton, Fulham, Arsenal, Spurs, even Liverpool can all mix it up in 3 or 4 different areas should they need too.

[Mick]

 

I think this can't be underestimated, yet some seem to dismiss it as having an effect. Strength in depth is a cliche perhaps but its one of the truest ones out there. Its runs like this where its required, when the current XI has lost its edge. What you say is true, but I think its more a case of the current staff and players feeling sorry for themselves. I don't think Pardew has lost the players, they both just seem pretty stuck in finding a solution.

 

Also and I think this is crucial, is that this is the first time a lot of these players and the manager has had significant pressure on them at this club. Its quite worrying how they have dealt with it so far. 

 

The lack of incoming signings will be a part of our problem, it's still down to the manager to sort it out and to get the players motivated again.

 

My guess is that players aren't as motivated as they were last season.  Last season we brought in Cabaye and Ba in the summer window and they clicked almost instantly.  Cabaye came in and had a massive pay rise, he was living in a new country and playing in a new league.  Ba had just came from a club who had just been relegated but he'd personally done really well so he wasn't tarnished by relegation.

 

They both came to a club which was attracting massive gates and they were both star players.

 

Add to that Tiote was now playing alongside a class players and they hit it off which raised Tiote's effectiveness.  Ben Arfa came back from a serious injury and that also gave everybody from the players on the pitch to the fans in the stands a lift.  Cisse was signed and started scoring goals at a rate that was as good as anybody had seen at the club for years.  Everybody was getting a lift regularly because of the positives that kept popping up.

 

We were winning games and everybody associated with the club were feeling good about what was happening with the results and league position.  We even went into the last game of the season with a possible CL place up for grabs so we had everything to play for.

 

Ba gets pissed off because he’s been moved to the left in an attempt to get him and Cisse playing but his mate steals the limelight and his dummy comes out. 

 

The season ends and we qualify for the Europa League for the first time in years.  Some of the players go off on holiday while others go off on international duty.

 

Cabaye taps his mate up and thinks he’s coming here to play next season, it doesn’t come off so Cabaye gets a lip on.  So he should, he’s been telling his mate that the club really want him and he’s been telling the club that his mate is desperate to come.  All that effort and he loses face with his best mate because the club didn’t deliver.

 

Pardew changes the side around to keep Ba happy and our clinical forward who couldn’t miss last season starts to struggle when expected to share his space up front.

 

The midfield is getting bypassed in an attempt to get the ball up to our forwards as quickly as we can.  The ball doesn’t stick because the two up front aren’t really target men so the ball keeps coming straight back at us but our midfielders can’t cope because the two of them have three opposition players running at them. 

 

The midfielders aren’t stemming the constant tide of attacks which are now getting through and our defence is now getting stretched. 

 

Krul is under so much pressure and unable to cope so he starts making the type of mistake you would expect from a kid or a has-been yet only last season was a contender for keeper of the season.

 

Pardew can see what’s going wrong only to dismiss it in the press, even when the problem with 2 central midfielders against 3 costs us easy games.  Cisse is banned, Pardew has the perfect opportunity to change things but doesn’t take it.  He goes like for like and goes 4-4-2, different personnel, same result.

 

The players are not playing a style of football that they like and the manager will not change.  The players aren’t motivated and the manager hasn’t got the tools to change it.

 

Most of that is supposition based on fact, in reality, none of us knows what is wrong with a degree of certainty.  What most people do know is that we’re playing shitty football which isn’t getting results, the players seem to be down. 

 

The manager doesn’t look as if he’s got a clue about how to turn things around, he resembles a rabbit in a cars headlights and just lets things drift around while point after point is dropped and our league position goes from bad to worse.

 

To be continued……..

[Mick]

Genuine competition for places is a great motivating factor for a squad, I'm not sure that many clubs really have it though.

 

It wasn't in the summer when people were defending the transfer window.

[Tiresias]

 

I think this can't be underestimated, yet some seem to dismiss it as having an effect. Strength in depth is a cliche perhaps but its one of the truest ones out there. Its runs like this where its required, when the current XI has lost its edge. What you say is true, but I think its more a case of the current staff and players feeling sorry for themselves. I don't think Pardew has lost the players, they both just seem pretty stuck in finding a solution.

 

Also and I think this is crucial, is that this is the first time a lot of these players and the manager has had significant pressure on them at this club. Its quite worrying how they have dealt with it so far. 

 

The lack of incoming signings will be a part of our problem, it's still down to the manager to sort it out and to get the players motivated again.

 

My guess is that players aren't as motivated as they were last season.  Last season we brought in Cabaye and Ba in the summer window and they clicked almost instantly.  Cabaye came in and had a massive pay rise, he was living in a new country and playing in a new league.  Ba had just came from a club who had just been relegated but he'd personally done really well so he wasn't tarnished by relegation.

 

They both came to a club which was attracting massive gates and they were both star players.

 

Add to that Tiote was now playing alongside a class players and they hit it off which raised Tiote's effectiveness.  Ben Arfa came back from a serious injury and that also gave everybody from the players on the pitch to the fans in the stands a lift.  Cisse was signed and started scoring goals at a rate that was as good as anybody had seen at the club for years.  Everybody was getting a lift regularly because of the positives that kept popping up.

 

We were winning games and everybody associated with the club were feeling good about what was happening with the results and league position.  We even went into the last game of the season with a possible CL place up for grabs so we had everything to play for.

 

Ba gets p*ssed off because he’s been moved to the left in an attempt to get him and Cisse playing but his mate steals the limelight and his dummy comes out. 

 

The season ends and we qualify for the Europa League for the first time in years.  Some of the players go off on holiday while others go off on international duty.

 

Cabaye taps his mate up and thinks he’s coming here to play next season, it doesn’t come off so Cabaye gets a lip on.  So he should, he’s been telling his mate that the club really want him and he’s been telling the club that his mate is desperate to come.  All that effort and he loses face with his best mate because the club didn’t deliver.

 

Pardew changes the side around to keep Ba happy and our clinical forward who couldn’t miss last season starts to struggle when expected to share his space up front.

 

The midfield is getting bypassed in an attempt to get the ball up to our forwards as quickly as we can.  The ball doesn’t stick because the two up front aren’t really target men so the ball keeps coming straight back at us but our midfielders can’t cope because the two of them have three opposition players running at them. 

 

The midfielders aren’t stemming the constant tide of attacks which are now getting through and our defence is now getting stretched. 

 

Krul is under so much pressure and unable to cope so he starts making the type of mistake you would expect from a kid or a has-been yet only last season was a contender for keeper of the season.

 

Pardew can see what’s going wrong only to dismiss it in the press, even when the problem with 2 central midfielders against 3 costs us easy games.  Cisse is banned, Pardew has the perfect opportunity to change things but doesn’t take it.  He goes like for like and goes 4-4-2, different personnel, same result.

 

The players are not playing a style of football that they like and the manager will not change.  The players aren’t motivated and the manager hasn’t got the tools to change it.

 

Most of that is supposition based on fact, in reality, none of us knows what is wrong with a degree of certainty.  What most people do know is that we’re playing shitty football which isn’t getting results, the players seem to be down. 

 

The manager doesn’t look as if he’s got a clue about how to turn things around, he resembles a rabbit in a cars headlights and just lets things drift around while point after point is dropped and our league position goes from bad to worse.

 

To be continued……..

 

Spot on

[Guest neesy111]

Our squad is arguably weaker this season than last with the likes of Guthrie, Best and Lovenkrands gone.

[Tiresias]

Think Guthrie and Best would have made a big difference oddly so far this season, Guthrie covering for so many midfield absentees and Best actually working in Pardew's goddawful 4-4-2

[colinmk]

 

I think this can't be underestimated, yet some seem to dismiss it as having an effect. Strength in depth is a cliche perhaps but its one of the truest ones out there. Its runs like this where its required, when the current XI has lost its edge. What you say is true, but I think its more a case of the current staff and players feeling sorry for themselves. I don't think Pardew has lost the players, they both just seem pretty stuck in finding a solution.

 

Also and I think this is crucial, is that this is the first time a lot of these players and the manager has had significant pressure on them at this club. Its quite worrying how they have dealt with it so far. 

 

The lack of incoming signings will be a part of our problem, it's still down to the manager to sort it out and to get the players motivated again.

 

My guess is that players aren't as motivated as they were last season.  Last season we brought in Cabaye and Ba in the summer window and they clicked almost instantly.  Cabaye came in and had a massive pay rise, he was living in a new country and playing in a new league.  Ba had just came from a club who had just been relegated but he'd personally done really well so he wasn't tarnished by relegation.

 

They both came to a club which was attracting massive gates and they were both star players.

 

Add to that Tiote was now playing alongside a class players and they hit it off which raised Tiote's effectiveness.  Ben Arfa came back from a serious injury and that also gave everybody from the players on the pitch to the fans in the stands a lift.  Cisse was signed and started scoring goals at a rate that was as good as anybody had seen at the club for years.  Everybody was getting a lift regularly because of the positives that kept popping up.

 

We were winning games and everybody associated with the club were feeling good about what was happening with the results and league position.  We even went into the last game of the season with a possible CL place up for grabs so we had everything to play for.

 

Ba gets p*ssed off because he’s been moved to the left in an attempt to get him and Cisse playing but his mate steals the limelight and his dummy comes out. 

 

The season ends and we qualify for the Europa League for the first time in years.  Some of the players go off on holiday while others go off on international duty.

 

Cabaye taps his mate up and thinks he’s coming here to play next season, it doesn’t come off so Cabaye gets a lip on.  So he should, he’s been telling his mate that the club really want him and he’s been telling the club that his mate is desperate to come.  All that effort and he loses face with his best mate because the club didn’t deliver.

 

Pardew changes the side around to keep Ba happy and our clinical forward who couldn’t miss last season starts to struggle when expected to share his space up front.

 

The midfield is getting bypassed in an attempt to get the ball up to our forwards as quickly as we can.  The ball doesn’t stick because the two up front aren’t really target men so the ball keeps coming straight back at us but our midfielders can’t cope because the two of them have three opposition players running at them. 

 

The midfielders aren’t stemming the constant tide of attacks which are now getting through and our defence is now getting stretched. 

 

Krul is under so much pressure and unable to cope so he starts making the type of mistake you would expect from a kid or a has-been yet only last season was a contender for keeper of the season.

 

Pardew can see what’s going wrong only to dismiss it in the press, even when the problem with 2 central midfielders against 3 costs us easy games.  Cisse is banned, Pardew has the perfect opportunity to change things but doesn’t take it.  He goes like for like and goes 4-4-2, different personnel, same result.

 

The players are not playing a style of football that they like and the manager will not change.  The players aren’t motivated and the manager hasn’t got the tools to change it.

 

Most of that is supposition based on fact, in reality, none of us knows what is wrong with a degree of certainty.  What most people do know is that we’re playing shitty football which isn’t getting results, the players seem to be down. 

 

The manager doesn’t look as if he’s got a clue about how to turn things around, he resembles a rabbit in a cars headlights and just lets things drift around while point after point is dropped and our league position goes from bad to worse.

 

To be continued……..

 

Spot on

[Mick]

Our squad is arguably weaker this season than last with the likes of Guthrie, Best and Lovenkrands gone.

 

Best is still injured isn't he?  Anyway, I think we're stronger in goal because Harper and Elliot have proven to be better than expected when called upon.  Defence is as was with Good coming in and then being loaned out.  Midfield is stronger numerically but weaker on the attacking side and the forwards are weaker, just.

 

That said, we were willing to spend on a central defender and a right back, or we were at least told that we were. 

 

What did we do?  We tried to penny pinch and it's proven to be a false economy because if we finish the season in our current position we'll have missed out on up to £9 million in prize money and we're not going to be the TV draw that we have been.

 

We could have pushed the boat out and spent a few million more than we were willing to spend.  We could have saved shit loads of cash that we’re likely to now lose because of how far we’ve gone backwards.

 

[Stuy_O]

Fair do's, but I'm still not having that it's entirely down to tactics that they are playing this terribly. I actually don't have a clue. As a collective unit they are freezing under the pressure, pressure which was perhaps inevitable given the squad size and increase in games.

 

They need to stand up and show their true colours, everyone, and start looking like a team again.

 

People can harp on all day about tactics, but if they can't even do the minimum required then its a pointless discussion.

[TherealnorthernTOON]

 

Should hire mr Pacino as the new motivational coach!

[Guest malandro]

MA would make him substitute the word inch for pound.

 

[Wullie]

Isn't the preparation point more that Pardew doesn't enough training ground time to prepare his players for a match against [insert European opposition] and then [insert Premiership opposition]?  It doesn't really have anything to do with personnel selected for the matches.  For Premiership matches last season Pardew would have had 6 days to prepare specific plans for the opposition.  With Europe now, that time must be potentially halved.

 

I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with you.  He could prepare his team to play to its strengths instead of looking for an opposition weakness, then it wouldn't matter who we were playing.

 

Don't know which of the responses to go with - I'll choose the first one..

 

I do think Pardew should shift the focus towards working on offensive work, but I would imagine that working on opposition weaknesses is something that every single manager does.  They may not place as much emphasis on it as we apparently do, but they will most certainly do it.

 

I think it's both his biggest strength and his biggest weakness.

 

Last season, imo his greatest tactical victories were Stoke and Swansea away, the two most stylised clubs in the division with a style of play that they refuse to get away from. And we wiped the floor with them both, Swansea we allowed to have the ball in safe areas then blasted them on the counter while Stoke's wide men were doubled up on while we exploited their hopeless central pair. I think Pardew did his homework superbly and it paid off.

 

The problems are threefold with this:

 

A) we don't have masses of time to prepare for every game, and certainly not this season

B) most teams mix it up and aren't as utterly predictable as the above

C) the best teams over a sustained period will always be the ones who focus on attack more than defence - Greece 2004 might win the tournament but they wouldn't win a league. Pardew is still ultimately too negative.

 

I think if Pardew had two weeks to do his homework on every team, he'd do really well because I do think he is good at identifying the opposition's weakness but he is severely lacking in knowing the strengths of our good players and how to get those strengths coming through. He has shown signs of it but stuff like abandoning the system that got a goal a game from Cisse just boggles the mind.

 

If he had a defined brand of football, it matters less what the opposition do but I think for an attacking player, it must be really tiring going into work four days out of five and studying what Wigan will be doing at the weekend instead of practicing ways to send Cisse clear on goal. That cannot be enjoyable and may be why our players look so devoid of energy and enthusiasm.

 

[Wallace]

Our squad is arguably weaker this season than last with the likes of Guthrie, Best and Lovenkrands gone.

 

Best is still injured isn't he?  Anyway, I think we're stronger in goal because Harper and Elliot have proven to be better than expected when called upon.  Defence is as was with Good coming in and then being loaned out.  Midfield is stronger numerically but weaker on the attacking side and the forwards are weaker, just.

 

That said, we were willing to spend on a central defender and a right back, or we were at least told that we were. 

 

What did we do?  We tried to penny pinch and it's proven to be a false economy because if we finish the season in our current position we'll have missed out on up to £9 million in prize money and we're not going to be the TV draw that we have been.

 

We could have pushed the boat out and spent a few million more than we were willing to spend.  We could have saved s*** loads of cash that we’re likely to now lose because of how far we’ve gone backwards.

 

I’ve been saying to people that our transfer policy will prove to be a false economy for the reasons you mention and I wonder whether the board will come to regret their intransigence with regards to transfers.

 

As well as the points you mention in regard to prize money and TV revenue, there will also be failing gate revenue. 

 

There are a number of reasons why it is better to invest in the Summer rather than wait till January.  For example, will our better players look to agitate for moves in January?  And if so, will that mean we are unlikely to achieve our perceived market value for them?  It is much harder to get a good fee for a player when everyone knows they want to leave.

 

Will we be successful in attracting players of the desired calibre in January?  Players who were keen to join an aspiring Champions League club last Summer will be less enthusiastic about joining a struggling team especially if that team looks like it could be in a relegation battle and so any January recruitment may prove more difficult.

 

Clubs will know we are desperate and will ask for higher fees and anyway, it is generally accepted that you pay more for a player in January as clubs are reluctant to sell.

 

Next season when the new TV deal kicks in, I think transfer fees may rise considerably as European clubs will know English clubs will have a lot to spend.  Would it have made more sense to have strengthened this Summer rather than wait until next year when clubs, agents and players will make higher demands of the buying club?

 

[Stuy_O]

 

 

So you think it's all down to Pardew then?

 

If that's his one and only tactic then why didn't we play like that last season?

 

Yeah, we play far too many hopeful long-balls, but to say that Pardew is telling them to just lump it aimlessly up-field seems unlikely. We've played some decent football in short bursts this year, but it looks like they're just not fit enough to keep it up for an entire game this season, unlike last season when we often played well for the majority of a game. I find it hard to believe that he's said "I know we played well last season and got a lot of success from it, but I don't want you to do that any more, just boot up the park instead." For me the team is just playing so badly that they've ran out of ideas and confidence and so they resort to aimless long-balls because they don't know what else to do, that seems a lot more realistic than him having instructed them to be s***, he's not Allardyce after all.

 

Being a football manager must be brilliant, we can just blame the players for everything and the manager has absolutley no responsibility for team performance.

 

Why are the players being allowed to do what the hell they want? If they are ignoring him, why isn't he, the manager, doing something about it?

 

Being a football player must be brilliant, we can just blame the manager for everything and the players have absolutely no responsibility for team performance.

 

Pardew, obviously has to take some of the blame and if the team were playing well, but were losing because of his ridiculous decisions then he would have to take the majority of it, but they're not they're playing like a bunch of f***ing clowns and that's why we're losing games. I can't think of one game where the majority of the team have played well, can you?

 

People always absolve the players from blame and never the manager, but the reality is it's down to both of them to a greater or lesser extent. The only debate is about the balance of blame/praise and in my view that has to come down on the side of the players, the vast majority of whom aren't playing anything like as well as they did last season and until at least some of them are it's pretty much impossible to judge Pardew's performance. People seem to think that he's telling the likes of Cisse to be offside every single time, etc, and as always people are looking for a scapegoat and the anti-Pardew bandwagon is well and truly rolling. The ironic thing is that most of the people jumping on to it are the same people who were singing his praises the most last season.

 

Pretty much my slant on this at the moment. Both are letting themselves down badly.