derry

I just don't rate him, he isn't bad but he is painfully slow and we need to have better players than him if we are going to go for the Championship/Premier. I'm not sure that any of this side will ever play in the Premier with us, or indeed are even capable of getting us there.

He is too slow.

I'm not obsessed with width, I hate watching narrow teams playing hoofball and being picked apart by teams playing out to the touchlines. Before this team can move on it has to sort out its left and right midfield never mind the centre of midfield and defence and right back positions. Lallana was making a decent job of it for a few games on the left both attacking, defending and scoring a fair few goals but Pardew tucking him in close to the centre has made him inneffective again. If Pardew would just give Waigo a regular right midfield start and either play Holmes wide left and Lallana in the centre with Hammond or Lallana as a proper left midfield it would make us a better side and be easier to pass and move, keeping posession without the congestion. That in itself would make us harder to break down.

He takes possibly 10 corners every game, say 5 free kicks and 10 crosses all reasonable assumptions. Bearing in mind his assists have been mainly set pieces it's a pretty poor return and reflects our right sided narrowness. I don't think James rates a place except as a stand in and a dead ball specialist he isn't.

Agreed there have been some decent crosses especially Waigo and Lambert, but as we are predominately right sided, when Waigo isn't wide right, it is James mostly knocking the ball in from deep. It is very difficult to get on the end of those crosses unless coming in off the left side attacking the cross, and as we are central the crosses are coming from behind and across.

You've made a lot of good points about the players, set up etc and I agree with all your reasoning.

To put it further into perspective those 7 assists came in about 28 matches and between 500 and 600 attempts at free kicks, corners and crosses, and were in the main either corners or free kicks.

I've seen every home game and there has hardly been a decent cross.

Sums it up.

Apart from Lambert's shots from close in free kicks, James takes all the corners and free kicks in addition to lofting in his crosses from 30+ yards out. Considering that 7 assists is a poor return.

Jesus H Christ Nick have you never heard of hopeful crosses described as lofting the ball in. In any event despite your defence he hits in erratic, innaccurate, hopeful balls directly at the defenders and nearly always easily dealt with.

More like 30+ yds out and Weston was with us.

We don't have that sort of player to even contest for the ball which means that lofting crosses in to big defenders/goalkeeper is a waste. James won't ever get to the bye line and hitting in hopeful crosses to defenders is giving the ball away.

I have a mate who came with me to the last three matches. He was a top class centre back and played at a high level. He felt that our crosses especially James's, except for Trotman's goal were just playing into the defence's hands. He felt that they were the sort of crosses that defenders cope with easily unlike the crosses coming back from the byeline. I feel exactly the same.

I'm not impatient I don't rate or like the way we are playing now. James is not a fantastic crosser of the ball he just launches it mostly on the 45 and mostly to the goalkeeper or centrebacks, he doesn't pick out a target. I just don't see Antonio who never gets his head up, James who is slow, Mills as a left midfielder, together with Trotman, Perry, Thomas, as part of even this seasons future. If they are at the end of January we are going to have to rebuild next summer for this league.

Reading obviously don't want him and he is out of contract in July. I think at best he is substitute material. Pardew is beginning to worry me as I had heard of his negative tactics before he came here. I think in this league with the players we have we don't need to be so negative. Surely playing Mills instead of Holmes and Antonio instead of Waigo is illogical. James is very limited but starts every game and Pardew cites him as one of his main providers which clearly he isn't. He provides a lot of speculative crosses hit in the general direction of the penalty area, Wes Hoolahan he isn't.

I think the manager needs to get his head around just where we are, because I don't think he has. We are in a half decent position performing a lot better than all but half a dozen teams and collecting plenty of points. We have little possibility of getting caught up in a relegation battle as we have well and truly wiped out the 10 points deficit and are mid table. That leaves a decision still to be made, do we go all out for the play offs or just tread water until next year. I think the club have to go flat out for the rest of the season, cut out the safety first narrow crap despite the results to date, pick attacking sides and go for it. Today Pardew, instead of going with his team, negatively turned it into a pace-less team, decent back four, slow defensive midfield, Lambert on his own with no service from wide as Antonio's poor control let him down. We have been playing negatively for the last four/five games, it is time to ditch that philosophy, The window will be open before the next league game on 7th January. Maybe it is time to give Lallana his head in the centre of midfield as an out and out attacking option with Hammond and bring in a quick, clever wide left midfielder, then play Waigo wide right with Connolly and Lambert up front. We need a good right back and a good quick left sided central defender to enable us to stop packing the team with one pacers. We may not get promoted but we might and it will be a lot better to watch and with further strengthening could turn us into next years Leeds. We need to start going out and taking the game away from opponents and use the talent we have properly.

I wish they would stop using him in such a narrow way, he was so much more effective in the five games where he was coming in from wide and losing his marker. He was also able to be more effective defensively. It is very difficult to be effective when caught up in the midfield melee we are creating by being so narrow.

Now that Sean St Ledger has gone back to Preston, as Strachan doesn't want him and even though he has already cost Middlesborough £2m initial fee, it may well be that Trotman would be available. I must say though I think we should be looking for a substantial centre back to give us real strength at the back.

Even his fluke goal should have been a quick pass inside and behind the full back to put Antonio behind the defence, and again when he and Lallana messed up a free kick in approximately the same situation a pass bypassing the wall would have put the unmarked Antonio in again. He should be either giving it to Antonio early, putting it inside the fullback then/or coming inside on the burst to wall pass Antonio to the Byeline.

I thought I had made that obvious Ron from my first sentence. He was much better coming in from wide and was scoring regularly, which now seems to have dried up because of this narrow role. I think it's a real waste of his effectiveness.

His crosses from 30+ yds out in the main are gifting the ball to the opposition. His cross for Trotman's goal was pretty square not lofted in from near the halfway line.

Lallana is the key to how well we play. Pardew has him playing narrow on top of the CM, consequently there is little room for him to be effective. The team seem to be very compact which forces them to pass it sideways or backwards whilst waiting for players to get wide or just hit it up front. Unless the team spreads out and passes and moves we aren't going to pull teams apart. This way of playing reduces our effectiveness and against 10 men played into their hands. Yesterday we needed to play to the touchlines and utilise our extra man running the opposition into the ground with our movement, but we didn't. At times we were chasing shadows and often looked like we were a man short.

Rupert Lowe's four really crass decisions:- Poor selection of managers after Strachan, especially the demotivated Harry Redknapp, trading down of players, his arrogant know better than everybody attitude, together with hiring Sir Clive Woodward because of the disruption it caused, having been relegated and deposed, coming back and indulging in the Dutch experiment and being relegated. That era is thank goodness now over and I for one am grateful for a substantial blue chip owner to take us steadily forward in a sensible way.

Happy Christmas everybody.