Happy Face

You're only allowed 10 outfield players CT

The West Brom one? How would that have cost us 5 points and a better goal difference?

Occasionally we were good. More often we ground out results. Frequently we lapsed back to being atrocious. P15 W6 D2 L7 Pts 20 That's 50 points a season form though, the sort of return that puts teams into 8th place. It was the 13 games prior that saw us almost relegated.

I don't see any style that makes a team starting Sammy Ameobi, Shane Ferguson, Danny Simpson and Mike Williamson anything other than relegation bait. You can hoy Marveaux and Stevie Taylor in there too when they aren't the ONLY weak links in the team.

Don't exclude them then.... League points from the first 10 and last 15 games (25 games) = 34 (52 points if kept up all season - 8th place) League points from the middle 13 games = 7 (20 points if kept up all season - bottom) If you want to look at it simplistically and say the whole season was atrocious, feel free to drop the discussion, as everyone knows the season as a whole was not good enough. I want to look closer at where the season went wrong though. It's as clear as the nose on my face that it went wrong once we accumulated a few injuries and had no cover of a high enough standard. A problem which we solved in January.

That's what was pleasing about the villa game. Like for like changes, Anita out Tiote in. Remy out Gouffran in. Simple. The problem comes when we lose Ben Arfa, or Coloccini and there just isn't the ability in the squad to cater to a loss like that. Pardew can't plant magic beans and create those players....nor would any other manager that comes in.

Liverpool top the league right now. They are a good side, and were a good side come the end of last season when they met us. Our trouncing came on the heels of them doing similar to Swansea & Norwich (5), Wigan & Fulham (4), QPR and Sunderland (3). We capitulated embarrassingly, as we did against the Mackems too (high on their new manager bump), and those games should be seen by the players and management as examples of when it's been unacceptable. Leyton Orient type moments when they have to look at themselves and make changes. Signs so far have been of a positive reaction.

The harshness of a football fan on a manager is something to behold. Starting from after Pardew took us to fifth place, and most were satisfied to have him here, if not astounded by the quality of football..... In the first 10 games of the following season, outside of the current top 6, nobody beat us. Only Chelsea and Man U could manage it. In the last 15 games of that season, outside of the current top 6, only Sunderland Wigan and Swansea could beat us It was the 13 games between that were a total catastrophe and which have seen all good will erased. We lost 10 of them. Fans are unforgiving of the fact we were playing games with Shane Ferguson, Sammy Ameobi, Danny Simpson and Mike Williamson. All 4 started against Swansea, as well as filling massive gaps regularly through that barren run. We have not lost to any team outside the top 6 this season. Still Pardew is on borrowed time with people who cannot see past that 13 game horror show.

Again, the bars represent the 5 games up to and including the one on the axis. We've grown the number of short passes we average by 100 (283 to 383) in the time we reduced long passes by an average of 16 (67 down to 51).

How thick are they? Discussing whether Walt knew the police were listening on the phone? It was blatant what was happening there. I thought it went a little too far in Walt shouting "It was all me" rather than keeping it a subtle barrage of abuse, which he is clever enough to do. But it seems Americans, even then, found it too subtle to be sure if he was actually putting it on or not...even as he disguised his weeping throughout.

same as a quote but use

Can't see the first one.

You wouldn't use a pie chart man. that would only work game to game. It would require a bar chart. I'm fighting the urge to produce said chart.

Average possession over the last 5 games has been 49%. Average possession over the 5 games up to and including Southampton away (our highest 5 game average for long balls) was 48%. So we're hitting less long balls with greater possession.

You only need do it for 10 games renton. The 5 up to and including Saturday (our lowest average long ball run) and the 5 games up to Southampton that saw our highest long ball average last year.

It would be the same thing. Opta provide everyone the stats and they determine possession just as a proportion of successful passes for each team. Not actual time in possession of the ball. I had the long balls game by game after taking a look at them at the end of the season. I never saved the short passes or possession at that time though. Guess the BBC match reports will all have possession though.

Go for it

A long ball is defined the same way this august as it was last august. Whether that's 30, 40 or 50 yards is irrelevant when the scale is unchanged. It tells us that those who hammered Pardew for his brand of hoof ball should probably credit him with taking away our reliance on it. Think its daft to suggest our possession has possibly dropped off comparably with our number of long balls. Happy to be proved wrong like.

More confusing is why they took Jesse to cook, and not Walt.

In more than 7 months (after 19/01/12) Alan Pardew has lost only 3 games to teams outside of the top 6. Swansea City (A) Wigan Athletic (A) Sunderland (H) Surprising?

What are you referring to?

The irony of the celebrity with more Parkinson appearances than any other going down with Parkinsons cannot be lost on anyone. Should have done more episodes of Loose Women.

Fortunately, it's not one swallow, it's a trend that I noted at the end of last season which had been in evidence since the closing of the January window. Adding the 4 games we've played so far only offers further evidence of Pardew's aim in terms of style...