derry

If the team firms up it's shape and plays outside to in attacking and inside to out defending, the fact that the two central midfielders break beyond the strikers needn't make us vulnerable, as the defensive full back and the two centre backs will come closer on the halfway line, but because of the overloads that we are creating we are going to suck in their attackers into their defence at the very least well into their own half. We then have to build the awareness that on the breakdown of any move the players defend aggressively from the front while the rest of the team funnel back and consolidate in front of the back three. I have two options, play Schneiderlin/Guly or Schneiderlin/Puncheon but Schneiderlin has to look for the opportunity to get into the box. Hammond is a poor passer of the ball and as such is likely to prove an impediment to high tempo pass and move football.

I think the Puncheon thing came to a head when he went walkabout, a la Pardew, and Schneiderlin had the ball but no left option. Hammond is no leader/captain or driving midfielder. I don't want to see Schneiderlin just parked in midfield, he needs to be teamed with an attacking midfielder and learn how to drive forward. If we are going to be the best team in the league we have to play like it and forget any idea of holding mdfielders. We need to just keep the ball and get rapid movement from the players. I think this is what Adkin's wants.

A better shape yesterday, nobody playing on their wrong side, attempted to start playing a passing game, but the passing and movement was as yet slow, so defence allowed to consolidate. Adkins knows what he is about and I expect to see dramatic improvement by the end of October. Holmes although not pacy is a good footballer and the only player in the team apart from Lambert that can put in dangerous crosses. Dickson improved the penetration down the left but need to see more of him before deciding on his defensive quality. Hammond's movement, awareness and passing is woeful. Our central midfield needs to start making runs through and beyond the strikers to try and overload the defences, to enable this Barnard's lateral ovement is good but Lambert is very static. If Lambert is carrying an injury, we need to rest him and/or get it sorted. In the meantime get a loan replacement in to cover. If he is medically fit but overweight and unfit then we need to get that sorted pdq which I'm sure NA will, but we can't be going on like this. All in all, not a bad start, whilst a little slow at the moment I expect the tempo of play, pass and move etc to be ratcheted up rapidly. I was hoping De Prado would be brought on for Hammond for the last twenty minutes to up the attacking pace and movement.

No.

And the Pope is bigoted! This thread in places is a pretty good example of ingrained bigotry.

Let me get this right, we are going to play two wide men narrow, reinforcing the central strikers, the full backs are going to be up wide to provide width, the central midfielders are going to sit deep in front of the centre backs and the counter attack when we lose possession is going to cut us to pieces down the lines. Who is covering the full backs now then? The mere fact having two dangerous wide attackers inhibits the full backs from attacking, so the easy counter is to push two wide attackers into the space left behind the full backs. The full backs will no longer be able to attack freely. Playing very quick players like Waigo and Antonio wide immediately ties down the full backs. Their presence alone inhibits the full backs, our full backs weren't being attacked by two as happens when the wide men come inside and we are counter attacked wide, the opposing full backs are free to reinforce the attack. Often last season when Lallana was narrow Harding had to cope with two wide attackers down his wing.

I'd like to have the chance to vote on a poll.

The four idiots embark on another dead end journey of self delusion. Isn't the statement classic Chorley with the sound turned down?

At the start of last season we again had a poor start and could hardly buy a goal but then we brought in Waigo whose pace and width immediately got us started scoring goals. He was then followed in by Antonio who despite being raw increased the pace and width and impact factor. As far as Pardew was concerned he didn't fancy Waigo and hardly surprisingly Waigo disliked Pardew and didn't want to stay. We are now back to square one, no real pace apart from a reasonably quick potentially good barely 17 year old. The manager needs to replace Davis, Jaidi, Hammond, possibly Schneiderlin, bring in pace and width plus two strikers, one to compete and cover Lambert and a quickie. This was the requirement in June plus a right back or two which we brought in. This is essentially the Pardew promise in May to create a NPC winning side for this season including Markus's/Cortese's demand for a more exciting, compelling brand of football. Unless this is done we can kiss goodbye to a good season. Why are we poor in the second half, a good bet is preparing for the season with the first team only playing in some of the matches, and then for a maximum of 45 minutes. We really were poorly prepared. I bet there is going to be some pre-season type training going on for the next three weeks.

It would be a big mistake if he doesn't, as this thread has drawn a line under this subject and the attitude shown. I would expect this poster to get a lot of antagonistic comments in due course, which would be a pity, but inevitable if he doesn't apologise for his nasty untrue remarks.

Mike Osman was anti Pinnacle and felt the Swiss were our only hope at the time, he told me Pinnacle had no backers and was worried as they were getting in the way before they finally dropped out. I speak to him about the club regularly and he has never criticised Cortese to me. I know MLT has and LM has commented also with reference to Pardew. However I think that getting rid of Pardew may well prove to be the making of this club despite what MLT/LM think. I think you should apologise for your remarks about Mike Osman because they are absolutely out of order..

Dave, there are plenty of people on this site that know Mike Osman and his family and will not allow these ignorant and bigoted comments to go unanswered.

You really are an objectionable prat. Mike Osman gives an enormous amount of his time to charitable causes and doesn't charge a dime. He is doing an event in aid of the Oakhaven Hospice on Friday that's the second charity event he's done this week. Mike Osman is a decent man and I for one think some of the snidy remarks from a few no marks reflect more on them for their bigotry and stupidity than Mike Osman.

Some of the comments on here about Cortese are deluded. It's not a democracy, it's a privately owned business, if anybody thinks they are going to drive out Cortese they are nuts. If you want to go to the matches, pay the asking price and go, then again if you don't want to pay, don't go, it's your choice. Whilst Cortese could have done things differently none of the things have affected me and many others, I for one really don't give a rats arse what he does, if he annoys me, I'll do something else. I know that last year we were down and bloody near out whilst, this year, whatever the short term fiasco the team is going through, brought on by the stupid low key pre season, we are in a bloody good position and I for one have no interest in an anti Cortese campaign.

Well it now looks that the criticism on here about the amateurish preparation for the season was pretty much spot on. Unfit, poor start again, so how good was Pardew, or wasn't he in charge of pre-season? This sounds more like it but I expected nothing less from Nigel Atkinson. Maybe at last we'll have some decent football to watch and I'll be able to stop taking painkillers for a stiff neck.

Bloody hell Mark, how did you manage to get it all right and only use four sentences.

Adkins was a goalkeeper, that was the comment, as for Davis he is a shotstopper, but as a goalkeeper he is a bloody nightmare. Doesn't communicate, hardly ever passes short, never comes off his line at corners to help out his defence and seems to have a very fragile confidence threshold. Short term I'd like to see Bart given a go but if he doesn't hack it we'll need to bring one in. Davis is part of the problem not the solution.

Since seeing S****horpe play here three years ago I have followed Nigel Atkins managing record. For me for the last 18 months he has been the standout overachiever in the lower divisions. Not only is he extremely well qualified, he comes over as highly intelligent. I have hated the sort of narrow crappy hoofball adopted by Pardew and was delighted when he went. I am now looking forward to decent players no longer underperforming in a straitjacket of a team and encouraged to get out and play across the whole pitch. Being an ex goalkeeper I wonder how long it will be before Bart or someone else is brought in or Davis changes his style if he is able to. I am looking forward to going to SMS and seeing a team playing proper football using all the pitch.

I had it checked with Brian Howard after this. The answer was, 'he is staying at Reading'.

It's amazing as some of the same people who about six weeks ago, when criticism was made of the way we were carrying out our pre season, were putting down those posters with comments along the lines of the pre season doesn't matter, or we'll walk this league. Now some of those same people are talking down one of the most qualified and successful in real terms managers that has managed to over achieve in his last job. I hope their judgement continues to be as flawed in this as it was during pre season.

No it doesn't, it shows how poor their knowledge of the football scene is, and how stupid they are, making comments.

We've lost Waigo and Antonio and because of our faults have been worked out by the other teams. If Adkins comes in, either the playes will play differently or the answer will be brought in.

You cannot blame the players. The problem is that under Pardew we basically played safe and underperformed. Now there is no manager but the caretaker is carrying on in the same way. It appeared to me that both Pardew and Wilkins suffer from the same problem, pick a system to play and shoehorn the players into it and if it means playing players that don't suit the preferred system do so. The best managers at any level devise a system that blends the strengths and weaknesses of their players. Those that manage teams that overperform understand the balances with the requirement to be compact in defence and stretch and overload defences in attack. The teams invariably play with dynamism and movement and always have players with pace. On the other hand we have glaring weaknesses. A goalkeeper that shotstops but little else, a decent back four then a bunch of problems brought on by a static central midfield, narrow left and right midfielders lacking real pace and the preference and ability to get to the byelines, an unfit and immobile Lambert and Connolly not able to compensate. Until we sort the goalkeeper and play from the back, speed up the central midfield, widen the attack and get Lambert fit we are going to be predictable, easy to handle and struggle to win games on anything like the regular basis needed for promotion. We need to bring in some pace and replace at least one of the central midfielders with De Prado. The most important thing is to urgently get in an overachieving manager that will automatically sort this out.

He still posts on here, has been on in the last few days.

Bill, I've lost count of the times I've been challenged to name who I would prefer when I've criticised Pardew. I've always named Nigel Adkins, he has been my preferred option for the last three years, followed by Sean O'Driscoll, joined in the last year by Lee Clark and Eddie Howe. I don't subscribe to the list of merry go round managers that pop up all the time. He is a proper footballing manager not a pragmatic, safety first type that wouldn't know how or have the balls to play proper football.