S-Clarke

TBF you'd have to say Pardew was probably their ****test ever manager.

At CB he's looked pretty assured, very good on the ball, nice turn of pace and comfortable on either foot. He's looked bad for the last few weeks because he's out of position and isn't given any protection. He's not a world beater by any means, but he's a hell of a lot more mobile at CB than Jos for example I agree that we didn't get the CB's we really wanted, but I think it's harsh to say Yoshida was a panic buy I believe he is a CB we've been looking at for quite a while.

I think Rodriguez has great movement, he gives us a bit more mobility up front and works the channels. But Lambert really should have started yesterday, against a physical West Ham team I think it's pretty important to try where possible to match their strengths.

But the worry has to be that the one game where we played a bottom half team, we looked lost, short of ideas and pretty inept. Wigan came out very comfortable 2-0 winners, and they are a pretty abysmal side. There are no 2 ways about that as their results since then have shown. I must admit, I'm starting to get very, very worried.

He was at fault for at least 2 of the goals, and for the 2nd was totally taken out of the game by an horrendous error. He's definitely not a full back, that's for sure At the end of the day, if you perform well enough for 70% of the game yet give away 2 goals through your errors, then you're not quite good enough in that position at the end of the day.

I don't believe we have the players available at the moment. I wanted an extra wide player in the window, I thought Mayuka would be that player but alas I was wrong on that. When everyone is fit, an attacking front 4 of Lallana > Rameirz > Puncheon > and Lambert up front is as close as we'll get to making this work in our current stance. I personally think we need an upgrade on puncheon, someone in the mold of Tom Ince or Matty Phillips - someone with pace and strength who can run directly at opposition players. I still think that at times we hit a brick wall when we get to the final third, and lack that spark to get in behind enough.

It's an odd one, Nigel has said concentration levels quite a few times and that is quite a telling factor, but the whole way we concede quick fire goals is just lower league. (it's sort of what you see in cup ties, L1/champ against PL) So, in my opinion, it's a lack of ability and a lack of concentration at key moments (i.e after they've just scored).

I doubt we will. In Derby's horrific year, they only( ! ) conceded 89 goals. Hope we can stay clear of Derby's records though. Forget bouncing back if we have a season akin to that, we'd be ruined for years.

Alpine for Manager, Charlie Weyman as assistant. Everything will be fixed.

This is all speculation really, but the reality is that if you lose every week and get hammered (excuse the pun) every week, then the dressing room isn't going to be a happy place. When you're winning everything is fine, but when we're doing as bad as we are everything is magnified to the largest possible degree. I'm sure there have been disagreements behind the scenes this season, the players wouldn't be human if they didn't vent their opinions on certain things (same as the management).

As we always do, but there's nothing wrong with voicing opinions on the things that are going horrifically wrong at the moment. I never, ever in my worst nightmares expected us to be as bad as we are.

Let's not make it worse.

I still believe Jay Rodriguez will become a good PL striker. Not sure why that opinion is stuck in the bin after the couple of starts he's had. Alot of it is avoidable though. It's not like we're being beaten by worldy's, bursts of pace, bits of skill. We're being beaten by our own avoidable errors, i.e sticking your arm up in the air, misjudging the bounce of the ball, allowing the opposition to have a free header in the PL box. I don't care what level you play at, those sort of things are avoidable and what we're doing this year, would also be punished in the NPC.

No idea what happened in the summer, probably not. I think November is pretty big, if we don't start picking up the points next month then he's gone. To replace him - someone young, someone who will embrace a Continental style set up. We won't get a Curbishley, or an old fashioned British manager. It will be a modern, young foreign manager.

It is an odd one. Even MOTD think the Yellow is our official 2nd kit.

Fonte threw his arm up in the air, why do that? He saw red for a second and that's unforgivable really. That's what's happening, it's avoidable goals, avoidable errors. I don't see Fonte being beaten by a lack of pace, I see him being beaten by making a wrong judgement call. Same with Jos and Yoshida to a degree, they're making the wrong decisions at key times. The entire team seems to be in panic mode as soon as we concede a goal.

It's hard to say. I'm a massive fan of his, but he's making really odd calls on things which shouldn't really be up for debate (not formation, but personal). You keep the GK in goal who played well, and you keep your top scorer in the team against a physical outfit Those 2 should be no brainers, so why keep changing it. Since he's been here he has gone on and on about consistency but we're probably the least consistent squad this year in terms of personal and who we've changed in and out. I think he's panicking he's looking for a fix but he can't find one. There was optimism at the start of the season and I think we played above ourselves against Utd and City (and they were also pretty poor) - our true ability is now starting to show against pretty average sides. Fulham were pretty depleted last week, but we gifted them a draw and WHU are a solid PL team, but we shouldn't be getting raped by solid PL teams - we should at least be competitive. Yesterday's result has worried me massively because things aren't changing the problems aren't improving. They're getting worse if anything. At the end of the day if it carries on like this, he hasn't got a chance in hell of staying. The next month is massive, and by December if we don't have 10+ points he'll be out of the door, and it may even be too late for us.

Shocking by Yoshida for the 2nd goal, so poor. But he's not a full back, and really shouldn't be playing there. It's so frustrating because over the last few years we've always had a competitive squad, 2 good LB's, 2 good right backs etc. But we're lopsided. I fear a lot of hope was put into the youth players over the summer (Chambers, Shaw, Stephens) which is why we possibly didn't push as hard as we should have for additions. But we're now at the point where it's clear that those players aren't quite ready yet.

It wasn't really. If you watch, it's quite a dynamic formation. It's not set in stone, but the bones are 4-3-3 - it can revert back to a 4-5-1, or a 4-4-1-1 - but in essence, when attacking it's a 4-3-3.

I wrongly thought Collins played for them last year, but he didn't. Nolan, Tomkins, Reid, Spence, Noble, Oneil...still players from last year though, who we competed with. But Noble kind of had the run of the game 2nd half.

It's hard to keep a dressing room when you lose every week, heavily. I could very much imagine that there are unhappy players which can sometimes create divides. It's down to the captain to help sort that though, but I look at Lallana and I don't see a captain. I would imagine the likes of Dickson and SDR are rightly ****ed off, seeing as that they're not allowed to go on loan.

I can assure you TDD that there is a remit all through the club to play 4-3-3, attacking football. It goes all the way through the youth teams. I'm sure NA has the say in who plays and who doesn't, I don't believe NC is picking the team what so ever, but I do believe he has been told to blend the team into the formation which the club wants to progress.

Don't think we had many on target all game. I summed up the first half y/day... Defense - aggressive and positive in their marking and ball winning Midfield - tidy, excellent ball retention Attack - Very little quality Unfortunately the quality in the final third didn't really improve, and when you add that to the fact that we started being morons at the back again, then it's no surprise we lost. The real worrying thing for me is that the WHU team weren't too much different from the team we faced last year and we drew 1-1 with (Same players through the spine, and at the back). We looked so much more competitive back then. We played a flat 4-4-2 that day, with Lambert and Sharp up top with Guly and Lallana flanking the proceedings. We look to have gone backwards in the summer with too many changes to areas which weren't broken, and too little changes to area's which were broken. Bit odd really. I felt we needed another CB, but I didn't see Jos and Fonte having the disaster they have had. They have let me down massively as I believed they're better than what they're showing, and the management probably believed the same. We could have done with 1 more CB and a LB though, as a minimum. In many ways though, you could look back to last season and say the problems were becoming evident. I didn't take much notice then because I just wanted us over the line, but if we're honest we threw away the final part of last season - that title should have been ours, but we started conceding awful goals, losing games heavily and Fonte decided to have a brain transplant. In hindsight, which is a wonderful thing, we have put a little too much faith into players who were probably playing above their level last year, as the closing stages of last year started to show.

It didn't work, it hasn't worked, it won't work.

I really want to see him succeed more than anything. I don't know why he's making these random calls this year, our success has come from keeping it simple and keeping everything consistent. The only thing we've been consistent on this year is conceding and losing heavily. To be honest, I don't think we have the players to really play the formation he wants. With Ramirez back, it will inject a bit of balance into proceedings but until then we should just go back to basics. It's very concerning when you start with your 3rd GK of the season, successful and consistent teams don't chop and change the GK. Gazzaniga did nothing wrong against Fulham, and he didn't deserve to be wiped out of the equation. So, I'm frustrated because I just feel he's so much better than this but you get the sense that he is beginning to become blinded by sheer panic.