derry

This my view also. Well put.

His name came up in response to a hypothetical question. I mentioned managers that played passing football and he was one of them. With not a lot of money he set up a good footballing team at Burnley that was promoted. Atkins, O'Driscoll, Howe, Tisdale etc run teams that collectively perform better than they have a right to expect and try to play passing football. Something we would do well to copy.

The simple fact about Alan Pardew's continued employment is that as soon as Nicola Cortese decides he isn't achieving the targets he has set he will be gone. The way he sets up his teams and the amount of route one hoofball we play has convinced me he isn't the man to take us forward. We have bought some proper footballers and are misusing them. The measure of a good manager is to get the best out of the team, by no stretch of the imagination could Pardew ever be accused of doing that. If anything we are regularly underperforming.

Let's wait and see.

In administration the players contracts are a millstone. Even the loans are contracted to the end of the season. Their clubs won't want them back, probably couldn't play them so won't take them. The players on inflated contracts will be given away if they can find any takers. Probably all the players left are on inflated contracts in relation to the CCC and won't want to stay. The players will have to be paid, contracts paid up or made free agents by mutual agreements and how much is owed in image rights/bonuses a la Sol Campbell all to be paid in full.

S****horpe, Doncaster and even Norwich can't compete with our financial strength making us despite the league a very attractive proposition.

This pretty well sums us up and where we are.

I like his style, he is doing well as is Paul Tisdale. As Clifford said what is needed is a club style. In that case only managers that fitted that style would be employed. The style would run top to bottom through the club. A change of manager would then not be such a big deal. The style would be overseen by the DoF. I certainly think Atkins, O'Driscoll and Lambert would be good enough.

Which was the unrealistic answer to an impossible hypothetical question.

S****horpe, O'Driscoll isn't realistic? Give it a few months and all these names could well be in the frame with the exception of Grayson and Coyle.

If you look back you will see it was you brought the subject of MU not getting to the byeline. I wouldn't dream of comparing the dross that passes as div 1 with IMO the best footballing team in the country and arguably Europe and the World. As for needing big players, Rooney is hardly tall and has scored I believe 19 out of 27 in the league with headers. Maybe we need to just stop hitting the ball at the centre backs and get it down and play and that brings us back to the manager. It's the pragmatism that is going to lose him his job.

Nigel Atkins, Paul Lambert, Sean O'Driscoll, Simon Grayson, Owen Coyle all build teams that pass the ball.

What crosses? With Utd a lot of players get to the byeline during matches, Valencia, Fletcher, both full backs, Park and Nani even Rooney, Giggs when he is fit that is why they get so many crosses in. Ready for next season which is really about the next month and how we finish the season off. I fully expect a change by Cortese if we aren't the real deal by May.

I'd be interested to know whether there are legal means of stopping administration proceedings through a higher court.

Maybe we should send him 'Inverting the pyramid' so he can see there is more than two ways to play.

No it isn't. I've seen every game at SMS this season and in most of them we have been hoofing it up at Lambert. It's the way Pardew sets the team up to play with the wide midfielders tucked in and no natural left sided player.

Starting from Cortese's comments, unless Pardew provides a team that shows it can win the league next season, with both it's general play, tactics and results then the end of the season is the time to change. Certainly not halfway through next season when it isn't working. The club have provided tremendous financial support in the transfer market but that is only the half of it. The management have to demonstrate that they can make a genuine title winning team out of these players. That hasn't happened yet.

Merrington and the other football reporters on here all said that the touchlines were ok. I saw a short tv cameo and the centre looked awful but the wide areas looked ok.

Certainly not to be tucked in and boot the ball up to Lambert.

Rooney is scoring nearly all his goals inside the six yd area, 7 out of the last 8 from headers most of them from byeline crosses. They are for me the best footballing team in the country.

Alex Ferguson.

Steve, can HMRC if they believe the administration to be inappropriate challenge in a higher court, ie injunction pending a hearing.

Alan Pardew doesn't need any help, unless he produces a consistent run of convincing results by the end of the season, which convinces Cortese that we will win the league next year, he will be a goner. I hope for his sake he sorts this team and proves that many on here are correct in having confidence in him.

Chez, saintpat and shurlock all were at the game as was Merrington. Merrington made the same point that the centre of the pitch was poor but we should play out on the touchlines. Pardew has a fundamental problem. He doesn't understand that if we tuck in, play players in the wide positions that come inside on their good foot (although Puncheon looks two footed) and default to 15 yds inside the touchline we can't play the ball around. Once the central midfielders/defenders get the ball, if there isn't an immediate touchline outlet on both sides, it is going to either get booted up field or passed back then booted up field. I defy anybody to try and tell me that isn't the way we play most of our games. Unless we play players on their natural side and they have the necessary pace to go outside and fundamentally want to go outside, we are not going to be a decent footballing team. Cluttering up the centre of the pitch is negative, leads to hoofball and on poor pitches neuters us. If Pardew doesn't sort that out he isn't going to be allowed the time to be manager next year. At the moment there is no evidence that he can do this. One off spikes and loads of draws don't cut it. It is my opinion that if there isn't overwhelming evidence that we can win this league by a mile next season he will be gone at the end of the season.

We took the gun out of the Typhoon, initially put in concrete ballast which didn't work, so we put the gun back in but can't use it as there is no fire control system. Chinooks for special forces bought new but incompatible systems mean they have never been used. You couldn't make it up.