S-Clarke

Alan Pardew:

HCDAJFU

This club will never work like that, ever. It's all about being sustainable, and splashing £20m on a forward in January in the hope of finishing in the Top 4 is a gamble, for a club of our size - an unsustainable gamble. As has been alluded to, we have a long-term plan. We don't react on a whim and knee-jerk.

No, we're not. And again, this isn't anything like the Spurs situation with Kane.

I'd say they're £24m more ahead than us. We can't spend that on a player. And he's not a striker is he? More of an attacking front 3 player, so really again not an alternative to Pelle suggestion.

He's priceless, isn't he?

They are so much better without Gerrard.

lol Niles Peterson, seriously? That's the best you can come up with? He was rated highly once upon a time, but is now pretty horrific and has been for the last few years. That's why we have a scouting setup, otherwise we'd fill our squad up with utter, utter, utter dross ''just because''. He is dross, by the way.

It's well documented that Koeman was a target for them, when they were considering letting Pardew go in the summer, he was on their list. However, they didn't let Pardew go, and then we stepped in. This is just a re-hash from that period. As other's have said, although Newcastle are traditionally a bigger club than us, right now I'd say we're in a better position to really push on. As we all know, Mike Ashley won't spend money there. And let's not forget Koeman's comments regarding his contract. I think he's a decent individual and I think he will honor those comments. He is a very honorable person, which is why he's had such a glittering career. You'd never see this if we'd been winning in recent weeks.

He was just saying thanks for last weekend.

I would agree with this, we're clearly not as fluid as we were early in the season, and I don't think Pelle has ever been a 1 shot 1 goal sort of striker, he seems to need a few cracks, as we saw in the game against Millwall in the cup, Newcastle at home IIRC. Back in those days we'd often created 2 or 3 more chances for him, and he'd most of the time take one of them. Now, he's really only getting 1 go a game...and that will be highlighted. Obviously he's not playing well, but I just don't agree with the simplistic view many are saying ''Oh, we needed a striker''. It simply isn't just down to that. We're not as fluid, slick or quick in the attack. We don't open teams up, force the GK into saves and I can't remember too many ''clear cut'' chances we have these days. Maybe 1 a game if we're lucky. I don't think anyone is saying Pelle is a wonder striker, he's pretty bog standard and what you expect for £8m, but he's still done pretty well for us I think. He will score goals, but he's not the sort who can do it all by himself. The drop in form of Tadic and the service he provided has coincided with the dip in Pelle's goals.

Yes, because lots of teams rip us apart.

Little bit bitty over the next few weeks. After the Chelsea game, we play Burnley at home on the next Saturday....but then we have another 2 week break because of internationals. After that it's relentless though, no more breaks, so if we're going to regain any sort of composure and have a little bit of a breather, it'll need to be done in the next 3 weeks.

We don't have a game for about 2 weeks after Tuesday, so i'm sure he'll have time off between that and the Chelsea game on the 15th.

Completely different. Kane had been playing in the Europa league and scoring, been on succesful loan spells down in the NPC and was at Norwich in the PL last season.

The last thing you do is throw in a young, untried and inexperienced striker, into a team that doesn't score goals. I'm glad the people running our club have a bit more sense.

Good team are Palace, but they play quite an attacking game so they won't be as dull to watch as Albion. However, we've still got to show some more imagination. Our season is in danger of collapsing through the floor if we're not careful.

I imagine the deals are already sewn up in the background to be honest.

Speed it up. It's not that hard is it? Stick a rocket up Mane's arse and get him to stay onside, and can someone wake up Elia as I've not seen him since Newcastle away. But whilst Pelle has been poor and was particularly horrific today, it doesn't help that the players around him are equally as horrific right now. The rest of the team is fine, but the attack is dead. I'd throw Long in. Not the most refined footballer, but he'll run channels and run defenses. It'll drag people out of position and create space. We don't do that at the moment, we play at a pedestrian pace waiting to slowly unlock a defense. WBA must have thought all their birthdays had come at once. I don't remember any real terrific defending they had to do, and their back 4 was slow. So, it sounds simple - but we need to zip it about.

Horrific today. Dire, dire. Awful. No more to say.

We look dead of idea's, well and truly dead. Hard to see it changing with this current lot. Pelle and Tadic are about as useful as a blind gorilla. They are doing my head in. Elia as well, I think bar 2 goals v Newcastle he has been horrific and I would not go near him in terms of a permanent signing. Other than that, the only positive is that we're still 5th. But it clearly won't be for long if we don't remember how to score. Just dross to watch. Fair enough we keep the ball, but I almost fell asleep. What is the point of keeping the ball if you do **** all with it? It is the same every week, routeen for defenses. I bet teams cant' wait to defend against us as it's so easy. The main worry for me is that it's not we're missing chances, we just don't look likely from anywhere to score at any time. We've got a big task on, otherwise the first half of the season will be seen as nothing other than a fluke result.

Ah, Alpine is back!

That's a good idea.

I'd have preferred both teams to stay in Europe to be honest. It looks as if ourselves, Spurs, Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal all have a clear run to the end of the season without any European distractions. Could have done with 1 or 2 having mid-week games...