shurlock

Alternatively it may have been the relief/joy of scoring a goal after more than 7 and a half hours of play at SMS.

What's your top tip of advice for Nige?

Got no problem with that - just hairsplitting over whether or not the guy was booed on the back of a fleeting camera shot six months ago is surreal, obssessive and totally irrelevant to what is important in the here and now.

Yes and yet the reactions seem totally out of proportion with what NC has actually done. 7 pages in and no doubt the same distracting nonsense will be played again and again on other threads in the future. If you want an example of a wayward chairman, just look at Mandaric down at Leicester. People have to lighten up or become tougher skinned. Otherwise save the melodrama for your boyfriends.

Not true. Most sophisticated analyses -say deloitte's annual football report- take size of transfer budget/wages into account. Our performances and results under pards look much flattering in that light. Millwall, by contrast, had an excellent season given the constraints they were operating under. Is it any wonder that hodgson was voted manager of the year notwithstanding the fact that ancelotti did the debut in his first season?

So why don't you practise what you preach and not get your knickers in a twist-give adkins some time and a body of results before judging that this wouldn't have happened under pardew. It's totally moronic that you&legod are reaching such absolute conclusions after 4 games. But if you want to play that game fact is that pardew was not achieving much better with an injured lallana and an out-of-sorts lambert - i.e. the same kind of situation facing adkins. Hence our poor start in the league.

Tonight was exactly the kind of game we would have drawn under pardew -a tight game away from home where we eke out a lead against a team we should be beating. Actually the reason we drew the game -our inability to keep the ball when we went 1up- has pardew's legacy all over it. The quicker we change it, as adkins said in the post-match interview, the more likely we'll hold onto these games.

From the first line from an extract from Will Hutton's new book in the Grauniad/Observer http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/26/them-and-us-will-hutton Interesting read. guess responsibility for this mess depends on where you fall on the political spectrum....

Spot-on

By cracks, I meant our dependence on Lallana's flair and Lambert's ability to win things in the air combined with the lack of goals and movement from midfield to compensate for those two players. We were incredibly lucky that both maintained such a rich vein of form and stayed free of injury - take that away and we struggle. Yesterday was the first time in a long time we created chances on the deck, in the air, down the middle and on the flanks - with and without Lambert (and largely without since he's getting better but still off last season's form). For instance, before yesterday, when did Schneiderlin last get an assist? Likewise the way we kept possession of the ball and yesterday after we went 1 up was a break from our away performance last season where having taken the lead in tight matches, we might have hoofed the ball and just invited teams onto us. Even Pardew admitted turnover of the ball without remedying it or even realising it was an inherent feature in the way he set us up to play.

Not a bad game but has a recurring inability to clear his lines, especially with headers as if he's forgotten which way end we're defending.

True but only to an extent - i agree that its easy to overstate the difference between this season's start and last season's results that papered over many cracks but i think you underestimate how far Nigel Adkins is looking to change how we set up and get us to pass the ball, something he emphasised in yest's solent interview. We will never play like Arsenal and we don't need to but we may have a bit more width, composure and variety in our play that gives us options going forward and affords us possession when we need to close a game.

Damned praise from a sore loser - we created some very good chances from open play and should have put you out of your misery long before your couple of half-chances at the end. We did have to soak up some pressure from set-pieces in part because the ref was trigger-happy with the whistle but there was a world of difference between what we created and what you created. This performance was not LIKE some of our other performances, except that yesterday luck went our way and we scored as Turkish implies. Yesterday's perforamnce was objectively better building on many of the positives from the 2nd half against Colchester. A long way to go but NA is starting to put his ideas in place.

Back in London - I'd hazard to say that this was better than the brizzle performance - the way we started the game and the crispness and pace with which we pinged the ball about was something. First time I remember us creating one and one chances by passing through them while some of the rehearsed setpieces in the first half -one to Butterfield that was dragged back, then Puncheon- were class - good to see its not a dead art-from. Unsurprisingly we had to soak up some pressure before and after half-time - they're a physical team who like to get the ball into the box and the ref did his best to gift them free-kicks in and around the box who (Sheff weds fans i spoke to were convinced that the shot that was slammed into Harding crossed the line but even they admitted they didnt deserve anything from the game). Barnard and Schneiderlin had excellent games - fitting that they worked the goal while Puncheon and Hammond silenced a few critics (me included): Puncheon worked his socks off defensively and Hammond showed some real steely, in-your-face aggression (freeing up Schneiderlin). Was unfortunately booked for what looked to be the tackle of the day. Lambo's still a bit way off - one comical sliced cross in the first half summed things- but he's running much more freely. Slight concern that we didn't kill them off earlier - a gilt-edged header should have made their two late chances, especially the last one irrelevant. No reason why we can't now pick up six points in the next week.

If you think the exhausting tendency to suffocate any life and variety out of a thread by returning to the same bugbears and grinding the same axes was a breath of fresh air,then I wholeheartedly agree.otherwise, I think you're spouting s**t.

I'll believe when I see it on the OS. The club has been so economical and measured in its public statements -and to date it has never contradicted them- that I genuinely believe it lives and dies by them. Nothing is said lightly or for rhetorical show. I treat the assurances given after Liebherr's passing in this light. It is usually the man who is insecure and has something to hide who talks too much. The willingness to do what you say more than justifies the minimal disclosure and in fact often accompanies it.

why do people find observational humour funny

Yep, the Hutton Review - only looking at the public sector though. Its another issue whether a cap of 20:1 is desirable and/or feasible.

Agree with the sentiment - once a system is fixed, its difficult for players to think or play outside it - easier to tweak it, rather than start afresh. still i would give the players a bit more credit - many have only been with the club since January -so the Pardew effect doesnt run that deep- while others played under different formations and styles at other clubs - take Lambert who was one of Pardew's first signings and turned into a big target man but was used to having the ball played into him on the ground at Brizzle. Finally, its easy to overplay the difference between Pardew and Adkins - for instance, both believed/believe in getting the ball to the wings, even though Pardew used some odd personnel to fill those spots that left us quite narrow in reality.

Schneiderlin has ability to step up - remember when he was first brought here, the Dutch duo thought he could play in the hole. Yesterday he made a couple of powerful breaks into the box (esp 2nd half)- likewise he was willing to take a shot on against MK Dons. I think this is one area in which Adkins impact has been immediate - i only expect Schneiderlin to become more and more comfortable going forward. Its a legacy of Pards tactics, not arguably the personnel.

Don't think if AP thought that Dickson and Richardson were going to replace Antonio and Papa but that them combining and overlapping with Lallana and Puncheon would have given us width and extra bodies in attack when opposing midfields came to SMS to frustrate. Unlikely it negated the need to bring in replacements for Papa and Antonio but having overlapping full-backs and the fact that Lallana and Puncheon were Pards number one choice, it may have reduced the pressure. Am with you on whether our team is good as people say. We got some massive results last season, especially the run of results at the end of the season which fuelled the preseason optimism (its no coincidence that for most of that period the pressure -relatively speaking- was off us and on the likes of Colchester and Huddersfield). Different kettle of fish now the pressure is on us. More generally, to extrapolate from big displays -especially with hit-and-miss players like Puncheon- and believe we can maintain that form over the season is deluded. Fact is that we also put in some very, very ordinary performances, even when we were winning. Take out Lallana and Lambert this season and im surprised people are shocked how the first six games have gone.

Again this was a problem last year - so lets not kid that this season's form is a bolt out of the blue. Last year we were lucky to have papa and antonio - both of whom gave us options when either Lallana or Puncheon flagged. But we still regularly went long and hit the ball in from deep positions. I don't accept that we didnt try to replace to Papa or Antonio - in part we were trumped in the transfer market, but in part i think Pards tactics were also evolving. In particular, it seemed like he was putting much more emphasis on the fullbacks overlapping with the midfielders to give us width and share the load with our 'widemen'. Hence Dickson and Richardson -fullbacks who like to bomb forward- were brought in. Had the plan worked, i don't think we would have missed Antonio or Papa as much. The plymouth game showed that we could deliver decent balls (esp from the left), though that day we had no height in the box to get on the end of things. In other words, I dont think you can disconnect the shopping spree on fullbacks in the summer from the relative inattention to wingers. However, Richardson's freak injury combined with doubts over Dickson's ability to defend have forced us to go back to using more traditional and defensively-minded fullbacks (Butterfield who's experienced but no springchicken and Harding who provides more width but not as adventurous as the role requires). Without that support,we've been exposed further up the pitch. As I say I think this was a deliberate plan by Pardew and might have worked splendidly had circumstances been different but it has failed without a plan B (e.g. pacy widemen) and consequently we're fitting square pegs in round holes.

- Agree he had three or four shots - probably more than all of last season. That volley that just whizzed just above the bar deserved better. One of the great imponderables is why he hasnt been encouraged to shoot more. As his cracker at Bristol and in the toulon tournamen. alas those moments for us are too few and far between as he consistently opts for the easy layoff.

+1.

Another thread on this- have you got tourettes?