Smirking_Saint

Tactically inept but has captured the hearts and minds of the players and made some shrewed signings. He is the man for the moment, you can hardly moan at NC for wanting shot of him at the end of last year, i hear he begged for the extra cash and failed. My worry however is that given a season AP will promote us, but if NC is trigger happy it could see the end of Lallana, Schniederlin and Lambert in the red & white

The only posts i have ever noticed of you is the one where you accused people of ignoring freedom of speech and now this of which i have highlighted above. I really hope you do not carry on like this in real life, you really do sound like a bit of a pompous ars* TBH and IMO lack quite a deal of respect for your other man, especially like i said after standing on your soap box speaking about freedom of speech lol. Butterfield looked very assured yesterday, tackled well, headed and generally competed well and got forward to support Puncheon when needed. I was very impressed with what is a very good signing at this level. To say he was at the same level as James or Otsemobor is somewhat laughable, especially after a single game.

I am not an out an out supporter of Pardew, in fact i think at times his tactics are a bit... lacking. I cannot help but think however that if he goes that will signal the end of Lallana and schiederlin and perhaps even Lambert ?

I can only hope Pards has better enforcements in store.

No idea, i can't help but think he would have had provided more upfront for us today and probably would have been happy sitting behind Lambert, i just can't see who we are going to get. Akinfenwa scored today BTW Also, who we gonna get in midfield ?? Hammond i don't think is good enough for the step up

Service was fantastic, sadly the movement was shocking

I do agree with a lot you say mate, but honestly i didn't think that at all, each to their own and all that though. They had one big hoof which ended in a mistake and the target man winning a header in the box (something we couldn't do) which they scored from, as the commentator said about 100 times it was smash and grab, they just defended well and at times luckily.

This

For me it is easier defending against 2 strikers then 1 with 3 men working around him. 451 is better for opening teams up i think. That said i do think we need 4 strikers, not necersarily excellent but with differing options.

Vicious St Marys mole strikes again

Well, probably not, another day we would have won today (i think that makes sense ?) We have the players, but we desperately need a replacement target man for when rickie isn't about, today showed that Barnard and Connelly clearly can't work together, i would have gone 451 myself, but thats just me. We were in a pretty dire situation when we came down, other teams would have replaced as we did, albeit probably with not the same caliber of player if you catch my drift. We have spent the cash to get top quality signings and our talent is there for all to see. I just think in this league you need a big man up top

+1 What exactly have you proven Alps ?? It is a single game ? Or did i miss the memo that said we had one game and one only to be promoted ?

We need a replacement target man, having 3 forwards in total at the club is not good enough. We also however need another cm

didn't think width or indeed delivery was much of an issue tbf. He played pretty well but with such a lack of meaningful movement upfront or around him there was not much he could create, to me he looked frustrated, as i would have been if playing behind the front two today. We need another striker and soon, one with hopefully height we can play in case Rickie is inured again. I don't think Antonio would have changed that much, Connelly and Barnard can't work together

Hmm yeah, i used to pretend to be drunk and post absolute sh*te on web forums when i was a teen That said, you are worse than alpine, he has an opinion and is generally negative but i actually think you WANT us and in particular NC to fail

Tactically he is a bit worrying for me, as well as his subs some times. But commenting on his signings is pretty laughable, who has he signed that hasn't improved the team ? Saying Dickson was terrible just solidifies my belief that you know the square root of 0 about football, if he keeps crossing the way he was today Lambert will have a field day.

Lol Mental, totally f*cking mental

Davis - 5 Nothing to do but think he was a bit at fault for the goal, he could have looked big and didn't. Kicking was terrible. Buterfield - 7 Thought he looked very good and very solid, won headers, plays the ball well, i would even sit him alongside Fonte when Richardson is fit. Harding - 6 Game of 2 halves, crossing is good and defending was good in first half, worked well with Dickson, then his mind wandered and he didn't get over that mistake. Jaidi 6 - Solid at winning headers but i worry now when the ball goes near him, plus he is just so slow. His mind went walkabouts. Fonte 7 - Class act as always, looks good on the wing 2 !! Puncheon 7 - Don't understand why everyone thought he was bad today ? Worked hard, crossed well, decent shots and passing but with Connelly and Barnard not finding any space he just had no where to pass the ball. Schneiderlin 6 - Started well but faded like everyone else, nice to see him having a go aswell, would rather see him getting involved up the pitch more often. Hammond 6 - Runs around a lot................thats about it, he pops up in the right places but just can't convert chances, if we could get better i would have him on the bench. Dickson 7 - Fantastic game today, constant thorn in the big RB's side, his crossing was fantastic and worked hard, didn't look as good at LB as he did LM. Connolly 5 - Didn't do enough for me, couldn't find the space a player with his experience should be finding. Barnard 5 - Worked hard but had the same problem as Connelly, they got in each others way aswell which figures as they are the same type of player.

Nail on head 442 just doesn't work for me, we look like breaking teams down so much more effectively when playing 451 or 4411 or whatever you want to call it. Hammond is all puff and no end result and connelly and barnard are both strikers suited to playing off of a big man, thats why they don't work or find each other. Jaidi is looking older, clumsier and doesn't seem to concentrate enough and Davis will never kick a ball properly. That said, i saw enough today to be confident for the season

We did

True, the amount of crosses and the amount of times we got behind them showed that. Lack of a proper target man was more glaring.

Spot on IMO

I don't know, we got behind them well IMO, but the floated crosses were just not ideal for the two little men. I would have perhaps tried putting Butterfield up front to hold it up ? Or perhaps Fonte when we were chasing the game ? For me it was glaringly obvious that a lack of a tall hold up player was needed, Fallon was a prime example, if he hadn't one that header they wouldn't have scored.

Also though Punch was full of running and looked good, second half he fell away though, perhaps a fitness thing, as did Schniederlin. You could tell the players lacked ideas of what to do, the problem is both LB and DC are small AND lack pace which means they primarily have to play of a big man IMO and don't work together.

My thoughts exactly, we need rickie or a tall striker as backup