Newcastle United 1 - 2 Reading - 19/01/13 - post-disaster reaction from page 53

[merlin]

Remember how fun the Championship was though?

 

It will be nothing like that this time, we'll stick down there for a while.

 

Agree - this season has eerie memories for me of 1977-78...just as now, we had qualified for the UEFA by finishing 5th the previous season, just as now, we won our first gane at home against strong opponents(Spurs this time, Leeds in 77), just like this season, the board didn't back the manager in summer(Dinnis wanted to sign Souness from Boro but eventually he went to Liverpool despite wanting to join us) and we ended up getting relegated with the lowest 1st Div points haul we ever had.

 

We ended up sacking Dinnis and bringing in Bill McGarry but it made no difference - we still went down and then lost most of our decent players as a result.

 

We were in Div 2 for FIVE years and I reckon that will happen this time if we go down...last time we went down, the best players stayed bu they won't if we go this time. It took KK as captain, 2 seasons under Cox to bring us back up eventually ......

 

Anyone STILL think it will be 'fun' in the Championship

[Rebellious]

If ever a game showed up a manager as having no common sense or tactical awareness, this was it.

 

We were well in charge of the game without actually hammering them, and once Pardew took off Marveaux in favour of Perch, the whole game changed.

 

I was absolutely gob-smacked when I saw this happen because Marveaux was having a decent game and helping to keep their m/f and defence on the hop...once he went, they began to believe they could get something and we threw the game away.

Once again, Pardew's cowardly and negative attitude to football has cost us dearly and this was the final insult to the fans..especially in his comments afterwards. I remember Allardyce getting the 'you don't know what you're doing' treatment and this example was possibly even worse.

 

We are now well and truly  enmeshed in a totally avoidable relegation battle and on form over the past 5 games, a favourite to go down. Both manager and board are responsible and as the board are not going anywhere, Pardew should, but the arrogant dolts in charge won't have a clue how to get a decent replacement.

 

As to the players, their morale is obviously at rock-bottom - Cisse was somewhat unlucky that he came up against a keeper with a good slice of luck as well as skill, Debuchy gave us some examples of how useful his crosses may have been had he been signed in summer and Cabaye had a good game until he went off, at least trying to lift the side by example...the goal was excellent of course. Anita buzzed around as usual .

 

Hard to see where the next point is coming from - Villa were unlucky not to win midlands derby at WBA and their result will have given them great heart for our encounter with them at Villa Park.

 

The day was superbly topped-off by Remy scoring at WHU for QPR and the Mackems winning again, this time at Wigan.

 

An old-timer I knew well, who had been to Wembley 3 times in the 50s, got so disgusted with NUFC before SJH and KK took over at the club, that he told me 'they should knock SJP down and build flats on it'......

 

I can now well understand his feelings....glad he's not around to see this shambles.

 

I think apart from Marv not doing much second half, Perch came on in response to Le Fondre warming up as he has came off the bench and scored a few times recently. So he swapped an attacking midfielder for a defensive as they were preparing to bring on another striker and go for it. So by them going for it, if was a betting man I would bet we had more chance of hanging onto a 1 goal lead than out scoring them with Ameobi and Cisse as attacking threats, similar to what happened to 8th place WBA last week. Le Fondre is not a bad player he scored both goals in there victory over Everton this season, scored and earned a draw at Stoke, scored when they nearly drew with Man Utd, scored against Arsenal, scored twice against Crawley and once last week when they did the same to WBA. I knew it myself when I see him come on we were in trouble. I mean who hasn`t scored past our defence and who has Ameobi and Cisse scored against this season ?

 

Again don`t take this as me saying I wouldn`t welcome a better manager but sometimes there is a reason behind peoples logic that isn`t just down to them being a crap manager.

[Varadi]

Again don`t take this as me saying I wouldn`t welcome a better manager but sometimes there is a reason behind peoples logic that isn`t just down to them being a crap manager.

 

I can see the reasoning in that decision, I just fundamentally disagree with it. We were winning comfortably at home against a side that had only 2 away points all season, and hadn't mustered a shot on target in over an hour.

 

The best way to stop Le Fondre having an impact was to play some positive football and stop him getting the ball anywhere near our goal - I know the players confidence is down but when you see your manager making such negative changes it affects the whole group's mentality, including the crowd.

 

Pardew has been quick to point out that the negative crowd reaction affected the team, but doesn't seem to have made the logical connection that it was his decisions that created that negativity.

[Gallowgate Toon]

He's already explained his rationale for taking Marveaux off, we needed a 'tackle' as they were apparently 'bossing' it all second half. Even if it was for Le Fondre, he's no bloody good man, we're at home to Reading and already playing a defensive midfielder, if they were about to start going for it then that could have left more space for us to capitalise on. Which ever way you look at it, it was a cowardly, illogical and stupid decision.

[huss9]

anyone know if MA was at the match?

[Shayno]

anyone know if MA was at the match?

 

Yes

[Optimistic Nut]

Absolutely nothing questioning the manager there. Completely blameless.

Surely Shearer saying that it was daft we only had one up front is questioning Pardew?

 

Probably the one thing he's sussed the last few months for the most part is that he's starting with the right formation. The fact there's players out of position is neither here nor there but Shearer criticised him for the one thing he has been getting right.

[merlin]

If ever a game showed up a manager as having no common sense or tactical awareness, this was it.

 

We were well in charge of the game without actually hammering them, and once Pardew took off Marveaux in favour of Perch, the whole game changed.

 

I was absolutely gob-smacked when I saw this happen because Marveaux was having a decent game and helping to keep their m/f and defence on the hop...once he went, they began to believe they could get something and we threw the game away.

Once again, Pardew's cowardly and negative attitude to football has cost us dearly and this was the final insult to the fans..especially in his comments afterwards. I remember Allardyce getting the 'you don't know what you're doing' treatment and this example was possibly even worse.

 

We are now well and truly  enmeshed in a totally avoidable relegation battle and on form over the past 5 games, a favourite to go down. Both manager and board are responsible and as the board are not going anywhere, Pardew should, but the arrogant dolts in charge won't have a clue how to get a decent replacement.

 

As to the players, their morale is obviously at rock-bottom - Cisse was somewhat unlucky that he came up against a keeper with a good slice of luck as well as skill, Debuchy gave us some examples of how useful his crosses may have been had he been signed in summer and Cabaye had a good game until he went off, at least trying to lift the side by example...the goal was excellent of course. Anita buzzed around as usual .

 

Hard to see where the next point is coming from - Villa were unlucky not to win midlands derby at WBA and their result will have given them great heart for our encounter with them at Villa Park.

 

The day was superbly topped-off by Remy scoring at WHU for QPR and the Mackems winning again, this time at Wigan.

 

An old-timer I knew well, who had been to Wembley 3 times in the 50s, got so disgusted with NUFC before SJH and KK took over at the club, that he told me 'they should knock SJP down and build flats on it'......

 

I can now well understand his feelings....glad he's not around to see this shambles.

 

I think apart from Marv not doing much second half, Perch came on in response to Le Fondre warming up as he has came off the bench and scored a few times recently. So he swapped an attacking midfielder for a defensive as they were preparing to bring on another striker and go for it. So by them going for it, if was a betting man I would bet we had more chance of hanging onto a 1 goal lead than out scoring them with Ameobi and Cisse as attacking threats, similar to what happened to 8th place WBA last week. Le Fondre is not a bad player he scored both goals in there victory over Everton this season, scored and earned a draw at Stoke, scored when they nearly drew with Man Utd, scored against Arsenal, scored twice against Crawley and once last week when they did the same to WBA. I knew it myself when I see him come on we were in trouble. I mean who hasn`t scored past our defence and who has Ameobi and Cisse scored against this season ?

 

Again don`t take this as me saying I wouldn`t welcome a better manager but sometimes there is a reason behind peoples logic that isn`t just down to them being a crap manager.

 

We are at home and worried about Le Fondre coming on so we remove one of our best m/f players ?

Do you think KK would have done that ? No - he would have let Reading worry about us....

[LoveItIfWeBeatU]

I couldn't find the thread about the quality of the refereeing in the Premiership so I'll post this here. How long has it been acceptable for opposition players to goad the home fans after they've scored? I'm sure it used to be classed as an incitement offence but refs seem fine with it now. Reading's goalscorer celebrated right in front of the Gallowgate corner both times yesterday. Anichebe did it the other week too. I could maybe understand if our fans had been having a go at them before they scored but we weren't.

[BlueStar]

Don't understand what his problem was, he acted like we'd been giving him shit all game.

[Jill]

Watched MOTD solely to see Wullie.

 

Wish I hadn't reminded myself of the match.

[madras]

If ever a game showed up a manager as having no common sense or tactical awareness, this was it.

 

We were well in charge of the game without actually hammering them, and once Pardew took off Marveaux in favour of Perch, the whole game changed.

 

I was absolutely gob-smacked when I saw this happen because Marveaux was having a decent game and helping to keep their m/f and defence on the hop...once he went, they began to believe they could get something and we threw the game away.

Once again, Pardew's cowardly and negative attitude to football has cost us dearly and this was the final insult to the fans..especially in his comments afterwards. I remember Allardyce getting the 'you don't know what you're doing' treatment and this example was possibly even worse.

 

We are now well and truly  enmeshed in a totally avoidable relegation battle and on form over the past 5 games, a favourite to go down. Both manager and board are responsible and as the board are not going anywhere, Pardew should, but the arrogant dolts in charge won't have a clue how to get a decent replacement.

 

As to the players, their morale is obviously at rock-bottom - Cisse was somewhat unlucky that he came up against a keeper with a good slice of luck as well as skill, Debuchy gave us some examples of how useful his crosses may have been had he been signed in summer and Cabaye had a good game until he went off, at least trying to lift the side by example...the goal was excellent of course. Anita buzzed around as usual .

 

Hard to see where the next point is coming from - Villa were unlucky not to win midlands derby at WBA and their result will have given them great heart for our encounter with them at Villa Park.

 

The day was superbly topped-off by Remy scoring at WHU for QPR and the Mackems winning again, this time at Wigan.

 

An old-timer I knew well, who had been to Wembley 3 times in the 50s, got so disgusted with NUFC before SJH and KK took over at the club, that he told me 'they should knock SJP down and build flats on it'......

 

I can now well understand his feelings....glad he's not around to see this shambles.

 

I think apart from Marv not doing much second half, Perch came on in response to Le Fondre warming up as he has came off the bench and scored a few times recently. So he swapped an attacking midfielder for a defensive as they were preparing to bring on another striker and go for it. So by them going for it, if was a betting man I would bet we had more chance of hanging onto a 1 goal lead than out scoring them with Ameobi and Cisse as attacking threats, similar to what happened to 8th place WBA last week. Le Fondre is not a bad player he scored both goals in there victory over Everton this season, scored and earned a draw at Stoke, scored when they nearly drew with Man Utd, scored against Arsenal, scored twice against Crawley and once last week when they did the same to WBA. I knew it myself when I see him come on we were in trouble. I mean who hasn`t scored past our defence and who has Ameobi and Cisse scored against this season ?

 

Again don`t take this as me saying I wouldn`t welcome a better manager but sometimes there is a reason behind peoples logic that isn`t just down to them being a crap manager.

 

We are at home and worried about Le Fondre coming on so we remove one of our best m/f players ?

Do you think KK would have done that ? No - he would have let Reading worry about us....

could understand perch coming on, i'd have had him on from the start, it was not taking shola off/starting him in the first place that was the probelm as well as starting jonas.

[Rebellious]

If ever a game showed up a manager as having no common sense or tactical awareness, this was it.

 

We were well in charge of the game without actually hammering them, and once Pardew took off Marveaux in favour of Perch, the whole game changed.

 

I was absolutely gob-smacked when I saw this happen because Marveaux was having a decent game and helping to keep their m/f and defence on the hop...once he went, they began to believe they could get something and we threw the game away.

Once again, Pardew's cowardly and negative attitude to football has cost us dearly and this was the final insult to the fans..especially in his comments afterwards. I remember Allardyce getting the 'you don't know what you're doing' treatment and this example was possibly even worse.

 

We are now well and truly  enmeshed in a totally avoidable relegation battle and on form over the past 5 games, a favourite to go down. Both manager and board are responsible and as the board are not going anywhere, Pardew should, but the arrogant dolts in charge won't have a clue how to get a decent replacement.

 

As to the players, their morale is obviously at rock-bottom - Cisse was somewhat unlucky that he came up against a keeper with a good slice of luck as well as skill, Debuchy gave us some examples of how useful his crosses may have been had he been signed in summer and Cabaye had a good game until he went off, at least trying to lift the side by example...the goal was excellent of course. Anita buzzed around as usual .

 

Hard to see where the next point is coming from - Villa were unlucky not to win midlands derby at WBA and their result will have given them great heart for our encounter with them at Villa Park.

 

The day was superbly topped-off by Remy scoring at WHU for QPR and the Mackems winning again, this time at Wigan.

 

An old-timer I knew well, who had been to Wembley 3 times in the 50s, got so disgusted with NUFC before SJH and KK took over at the club, that he told me 'they should knock SJP down and build flats on it'......

 

I can now well understand his feelings....glad he's not around to see this shambles.

 

I think apart from Marv not doing much second half, Perch came on in response to Le Fondre warming up as he has came off the bench and scored a few times recently. So he swapped an attacking midfielder for a defensive as they were preparing to bring on another striker and go for it. So by them going for it, if was a betting man I would bet we had more chance of hanging onto a 1 goal lead than out scoring them with Ameobi and Cisse as attacking threats, similar to what happened to 8th place WBA last week. Le Fondre is not a bad player he scored both goals in there victory over Everton this season, scored and earned a draw at Stoke, scored when they nearly drew with Man Utd, scored against Arsenal, scored twice against Crawley and once last week when they did the same to WBA. I knew it myself when I see him come on we were in trouble. I mean who hasn`t scored past our defence and who has Ameobi and Cisse scored against this season ?

 

Again don`t take this as me saying I wouldn`t welcome a better manager but sometimes there is a reason behind peoples logic that isn`t just down to them being a crap manager.

 

We are at home and worried about Le Fondre coming on so we remove one of our best m/f players ?

Do you think KK would have done that ? No - he would have let Reading worry about us....

 

I see the we were at home logic but we have been a bit of a shambles at home and away all season. Home advantage has done us no favours all season. As for what KK would have done, well we are well past that, let them worry about us ? No one is worried about our squad at the moment. The only player any team has to fear at the moment is Cabaye but he went off injured and Santon if you let him inside.

[Rebellious]

If ever a game showed up a manager as having no common sense or tactical awareness, this was it.

 

We were well in charge of the game without actually hammering them, and once Pardew took off Marveaux in favour of Perch, the whole game changed.

 

I was absolutely gob-smacked when I saw this happen because Marveaux was having a decent game and helping to keep their m/f and defence on the hop...once he went, they began to believe they could get something and we threw the game away.

Once again, Pardew's cowardly and negative attitude to football has cost us dearly and this was the final insult to the fans..especially in his comments afterwards. I remember Allardyce getting the 'you don't know what you're doing' treatment and this example was possibly even worse.

 

We are now well and truly  enmeshed in a totally avoidable relegation battle and on form over the past 5 games, a favourite to go down. Both manager and board are responsible and as the board are not going anywhere, Pardew should, but the arrogant dolts in charge won't have a clue how to get a decent replacement.

 

As to the players, their morale is obviously at rock-bottom - Cisse was somewhat unlucky that he came up against a keeper with a good slice of luck as well as skill, Debuchy gave us some examples of how useful his crosses may have been had he been signed in summer and Cabaye had a good game until he went off, at least trying to lift the side by example...the goal was excellent of course. Anita buzzed around as usual .

 

Hard to see where the next point is coming from - Villa were unlucky not to win midlands derby at WBA and their result will have given them great heart for our encounter with them at Villa Park.

 

The day was superbly topped-off by Remy scoring at WHU for QPR and the Mackems winning again, this time at Wigan.

 

An old-timer I knew well, who had been to Wembley 3 times in the 50s, got so disgusted with NUFC before SJH and KK took over at the club, that he told me 'they should knock SJP down and build flats on it'......

 

I can now well understand his feelings....glad he's not around to see this shambles.

 

I think apart from Marv not doing much second half, Perch came on in response to Le Fondre warming up as he has came off the bench and scored a few times recently. So he swapped an attacking midfielder for a defensive as they were preparing to bring on another striker and go for it. So by them going for it, if was a betting man I would bet we had more chance of hanging onto a 1 goal lead than out scoring them with Ameobi and Cisse as attacking threats, similar to what happened to 8th place WBA last week. Le Fondre is not a bad player he scored both goals in there victory over Everton this season, scored and earned a draw at Stoke, scored when they nearly drew with Man Utd, scored against Arsenal, scored twice against Crawley and once last week when they did the same to WBA. I knew it myself when I see him come on we were in trouble. I mean who hasn`t scored past our defence and who has Ameobi and Cisse scored against this season ?

 

Again don`t take this as me saying I wouldn`t welcome a better manager but sometimes there is a reason behind peoples logic that isn`t just down to them being a crap manager.

 

We are at home and worried about Le Fondre coming on so we remove one of our best m/f players ?

Do you think KK would have done that ? No - he would have let Reading worry about us....

could understand perch coming on, i'd have had him on from the start, it was not taking shola off/starting him in the first place that was the probelm as well as starting jonas.

 

Clutching at straws here, maybe he was highlighting to MA how much we need a Striker/winger lol

[Guest firetotheworks]

Did it show the reactions to the subs?

[leffe186]

I couldn't find the thread about the quality of the refereeing in the Premiership so I'll post this here. How long has it been acceptable for opposition players to goad the home fans after they've scored? I'm sure it used to be classed as an incitement offence but refs seem fine with it now. Reading's goalscorer celebrated right in front of the Gallowgate corner both times yesterday. Anichebe did it the other week too. I could maybe understand if our fans had been having a go at them before they scored but we weren't.

 

I'm glad it's acceptable. I reserve the right to abuse the opposition players as a fan (within certain limits!), so it would be pretty rough if I couldn't take it back.

 

One of my favourite goal celebrations of all time is Charlie George's sliding double-Vs to the opposition fans. I'm not a fan of the "hand cupped to the ear" celebration, because it's a bit of a cliche, but it's all part of the fun. I hate those incidents when fans complain to the FA/police about incitement from players, when the article is usually accompanied by a picture of the player in front of a bank of people giving him "wanker" signs or the finger.

[Guest firetotheworks]

Did it show the reactions to the subs?

 

MOTD that is. Anyone?

[Robster]

Clutching at straws here, maybe he was highlighting to MA how much we need a Striker/winger lol

Nothing send a message out like deliberately relegating the club. Awesome management

[BONTEMPI]

Me giving him abuse on MOTD.

 

Was that you? Guy with beard in your wullie hat?

[Rebellious]

Clutching at straws here, maybe he was highlighting to MA how much we need a Striker/winger lol

Nothing send a message out like deliberately relegating the club. Awesome management

 

Maybe MA is an optimist so Pardew has resorted to making MA`s eyes bleed at the sight of Ameobi trying his hardest.

[Wisdom Body]

"When you're down at the bottom sometimes things don't go your way..."

When he's done here I actually see Pardew ending up as one of the talking heads on MOTD or Sky, he's already spouting all their usual clichés. His chatter is indicative of him as a manager. A total lack of footballing ideas.

[Minhosa]

"When you're down at the bottom sometimes things don't go your way..."

When he's done here I actually see Pardew ending up as one of the talking heads on MOTD or Sky, he's already spouting all their usual clichés. His chatter is indicative of him as a manager. A total lack of footballing ideas.

 

How exactly does that apply to Reading, Villa and QPR who all picked up points yesterday?

[Guest mavericknufc]

I thought I'd sleep on that performance before coming in and making sweeping judgements or making knee jerk comments, but if anything I'm more frustrated now I've had time to think about it.

 

For a start Reading hadn't won away from home all season, they're hardly going to come here going all gung-ho playing attacking football.  Their game plan would more than likely be to get as many behind the ball and try and nick a goal on the break.  As the club have staff that watch our opponents previous games and work on strategy its something that you'd expect them to pick up on and set the team up to counter these tactics, which leads me to our team selection.....

 

For a team thats going to get men behind the ball you need to make the pitch as wide as possible and take opponents into positions that break with their plan, creating space to exploit; our "wingers" were Jonas and Shola.  Neither are capable of doing anything from wide areas that can endanger the opposition.  In the last 5 minutes when we went for the equaliser it was no coincidence that the chances came about when the likes of Debuchy, Santon and Obertan hit the by-line and tried getting balls into the box.  For all his faults Obertan has pace and a trick which against teams like Reading he could use to good effect, counter this with Shola who will amble around, give a free kicks away when he loses the ball and then just runs into someone and his trademark attempted shot that flies wide to which his response is to stand on the spot for an age, staring at the sky with a big grin.  Cisse seems to be suffering through a lack of defined role.  He had a couple of good chances which were promising but at times I wasnt sure if we were using him as a a target man, was he meant to be playing on the shoulder or dropping deep? It doesnt look like he has a defined role, or if he does he's having to do all of the extra work because the team is not setup or has the personell to get the best of him in the role he plays.

 

Our distribution not only from goal kicks but free kicks inside our half is dreadful.  The number of times I sat there and each defender ran up the pitch in preparation for a Krul hoof was excruciating.  All it takes is for one of the full backs to drop off and then you can start again.  I can garuntee that Reading would be overjoyed if all they had to deal with were long balls from Krul.  If we played it short from the back it would mean the opposition have to come up the pitch to close the ball down which then leads to more space elsewhere and it's no coincidence that the times we done this in the first half we created chances and looked a decent team.  As I fan I don't get paid to watch our games and assess our strengths or where we go wrong but I've watched the majority of our games this season, be it on TV or at the ground and I can see that the distribution from the back isnt good enough, it just invites pressure back onto us.  If there's an arial battle in midfield the likes of Cabaye and Anita aren't going to win and it's no fault of their own.  When Debuchy arrived Pardew said he hoped that would improve our distribution from defence as he noticed that was a weak point, but where has the progress been on this?  We've had a full week to prepare for the Norwich and Reading games and I havent seen any change.  If we cant, or are not willing to do this against two teams in similar form to ourselves when are we going to start doing this?

 

As mentioned the substitutes were baffling, as much as I can accept Cabaye was injured the other changes sacraficed the shape of the team as well as causing a negative reaction from the fans.  We ended the match with a midfield of Jonas, Perch, Bigi, Obertan, Cisse/Ameobi (swapping on the right).  I'd be surprised if any of those regularly play together in such a formation in training and I doubt any had any instruction of what role they were playing other than "keep it tight" or "get stuck in and disrupt them".  I found it to be poor management to throw Bigi on when he did as the crowd were agitated and for a 19/20 year old it's not going to help him being thrown in and expected to make a difference. 

 

I just don't know what Pardew and the rest of the backroom staff see as we seem to be making the same mistakes every week which is inexcusable.  The excuses are running out, we havent had midweek Europa games recently, players are coming back from injury and we've had an "easy" run of fixtures.  What are the next excuses? "Missing the spark HBA gives us" didnt Pards say something along the lines of "we're not a one man team" during the summer? I'm fed up.

[NG32]

I thought I'd sleep on that performance before coming in and making sweeping judgements or making knee jerk comments, but if anything I'm more frustrated now I've had time to think about it.

 

For a start Reading hadn't won away from home all season, they're hardly going to come here going all gung-ho playing attacking football.  Their game plan would more than likely be to get as many behind the ball and try and nick a goal on the break.  As the club have staff that watch our opponents previous games and work on strategy its something that you'd expect them to pick up on and set the team up to counter these tactics, which leads me to our team selection.....

 

For a team thats going to get men behind the ball you need to make the pitch as wide as possible and take opponents into positions that break with their plan, creating space to exploit; our "wingers" were Jonas and Shola.  Neither are capable of doing anything from wide areas that can endanger the opposition.  In the last 5 minutes when we went for the equaliser it was no coincidence that the chances came about when the likes of Debuchy, Santon and Obertan hit the by-line and tried getting balls into the box.  For all his faults Obertan has pace and a trick which against teams like Reading he could use to good effect, counter this with Shola who will amble around, give a free kicks away when he loses the ball and then just runs into someone and his trademark attempted shot that flies wide to which his response is to stand on the spot for an age, staring at the sky with a big grin.  Cisse seems to be suffering through a lack of defined role.  He had a couple of good chances which were promising but at times I wasnt sure if we were using him as a a target man, was he meant to be playing on the shoulder or dropping deep? It doesnt look like he has a defined role, or if he does he's having to do all of the extra work because the team is not setup or has the personell to get the best of him in the role he plays.

 

Our distribution not only from goal kicks but free kicks inside our half is dreadful.  The number of times I sat there and each defender ran up the pitch in preparation for a Krul hoof was excruciating.  All it takes is for one of the full backs to drop off and then you can start again.  I can garuntee that Reading would be overjoyed if all they had to deal with were long balls from Krul.  If we played it short from the back it would mean the opposition have to come up the pitch to close the ball down which then leads to more space elsewhere and it's no coincidence that the times we done this in the first half we created chances and looked a decent team.  As I fan I don't get paid to watch our games and assess our strengths or where we go wrong but I've watched the majority of our games this season, be it on TV or at the ground and I can see that the distribution from the back isnt good enough, it just invites pressure back onto us.  If there's an arial battle in midfield the likes of Cabaye and Anita aren't going to win and it's no fault of their own.  When Debuchy arrived Pardew said he hoped that would improve our distribution from defence as he noticed that was a weak point, but where has the progress been on this?  We've had a full week to prepare for the Norwich and Reading games and I havent seen any change.  If we cant, or are not willing to do this against two teams in similar form to ourselves when are we going to start doing this?

 

As mentioned the substitutes were baffling, as much as I can accept Cabaye was injured the other changes sacraficed the shape of the team as well as causing a negative reaction from the fans.  We ended the match with a midfield of Jonas, Perch, Bigi, Obertan, Cisse/Ameobi (swapping on the right).  I'd be surprised if any of those regularly play together in such a formation in training and I doubt any had any instruction of what role they were playing other than "keep it tight" or "get stuck in and disrupt them".  I found it to be poor management to throw Bigi on when he did as the crowd were agitated and for a 19/20 year old it's not going to help him being thrown in and expected to make a difference. 

 

I just don't know what Pardew and the rest of the backroom staff see as we seem to be making the same mistakes every week which is inexcusable.  The excuses are running out, we havent had midweek Europa games recently, players are coming back from injury and we've had an "easy" run of fixtures.  What are the next excuses? "Missing the spark HBA gives us" didnt Pards say something along the lines of "we're not a one man team" during the summer? I'm fed up.

 

[Dave]

We started Shola Ameobi against Ian Harte. He played the 90mins.

 

Hard to fathom.