Has Pards now started to lose the dressing room?

A bit of common sense! Nice to see nothing changes while I'm away, a few bad results and the pitch forks are out. He has not lost the dressing room. Undoubtedly though players are demotivated by being at a club which is run in a very financially prudent fashion. The problem is our fans have been treated to something very different since the early 90's, and have seen what can be achieved at this place with financial backing.

For me sooner or later there has to be an acceptance that the problem does not lie in the managers office or out on the training pitch. Whereas I may not agree with everything Pards does, I may not agree with players giving less than 100% (some didn't last night), I can quite clearly see where the lack of motivation comes from. The fact remains, when Pardew has been equipped with the tools, he has done a sound job. Not brilliant but decent enough.

Everyone knew if we sold Cabaye we HAD to replace him or it would derail the team. Our whole gameplan centred around him, everything went through him. If that is the only player capable playing that role then you can not blame the manager when things go tits up and you have to devise a whole new gameplan mid season. I'm sure someone will mention split pea hearts of Marv or HBA - however I can't take any more of their ineptitude or the excuses made for it. Been PARDEWED? Yeah sure they have Queuing up round the block for them aren't they

I hear the names of Hoddle, Laudrup etc mentioned on these boards. It just makes me laugh to think people could be so naive. They'd be great guys to go and get (though Laudrup fared no better than Pards with Europa), however there is not a chance in hell of Ashley having the ambition to employ them, and not a chance in hell of them wanting to work for him.

Everytime we get a few bad results, the same old rubbish gets spouted in my humble opinion. It is so true when people comment this club is 3 or 4 bad results from the next crisis. We are.

Anyway back to work.............................

 

Hacky,

thank goodness you're back. Even I had to partially defend Pards because you weren't here to do it. I can go back to normal now. PARDEW OUT!

 

Wow Hacky, you sound just like "Its The Hope That Kills".

 

Oh, by the way, Pardew out!

 

Problem is though it's not just one or two bad results. 5 consecutive losses at home, total inability to score a goal, no apparent sign of anything changing in future. I would hope that we get 3 points against Villa then I'd suggest we give some of our younger players a good run and gain experience. We'd have nothing to lose, being safe, and they couldn't do any worse than current team.

 

Agree with you there.

 

You have though just stated our whole game plan was based purely around Cabaye. If he was a decent manager surely he'd have more than one game plan?

His record with us when Cabaye is/was unavailable is very poor. I agree he's done okay at times with us. But when we lose, we lose handsomely. It's one extreme to the other.

 

Just because he's been away for a while there is no need to be so obvious about flattering him with compliments!

 

Explain the derbies then fellas.
Pardew has (on paper) a better and more valuable team to put out... at home...... and we get beat (twice) and quite heavily by a supposedly 'inferior' team with a less experienced and 'inferior' manager.
Using Obi's analogy... if I were a manager of, say a sales team and I had one or two top, top talents at my disposal and a small local firm of salesman kicked my arse quite embarrasingly to win two big contracts on the bounce I'd fully expect my boss to go ape **** and question my ability... I'd even go further and say I'd consider my own position and ability to motivate my team and probably walk.

I'll actually go one further and ask you to cast your minds back to SBR's first game in charge.


Gullit had lost the dressing room... just been beaten by a piss poor SAFC team due to poor tactics at HOME and got sacked..... we were second bottom at the time and had a god awful start to the 99-00 season.
SBR came in with the SAME team at his disposal... MOTIVATED the dressing room and promptly beat Sheffield Wednesday 8-0. The biggest win I've ever witnessed at SJP.

The rest as they say is history.

I thank Pards for his efforts and some great memories but there comes a time when enough is enough... and to drag things out simply tarnishes those memories.

'But ACS... who do you realistically think we could get to come in?'....... Roberto Di Matteo.

 

For the record... financial stability aside, Ashley needs to go too.
I've worked in or around retail for years and rule number 1 is 'engage with your customers'... something he still to this day doesn't grasp.
I don't ask for much... just to be made to feel part of something.
I'll put up with ****e tactics... ****e football..... heavy defeats if I know short term pain will be offset by long term gain.
As it stands I'd have more chance of marrying Karen Gillan on the moon in Obi's wedding dress than I would getting any communication out of our club.

 

We were 8th at this time of year (give or take a couple of weeks) when we sold Carroll for £35 million. He has had a high percentage of that to spend on new players to be in the exact same position the day we sold Cabaye, so having the chance to build his own squad and we've not progressed. Sell Cabaye and we are missing him more than Carroll. No defence, players aren't playing for him anymore, no encouragement to players from him, yet everytime it was needed Sherwood was encouraging the Tottenham players. Also does anyone think 17 or 18 3 goals or more defeats in 3 years is the sign of a good manager. If we get a new manager and certain players don't perform they get dropped and sold. Pardew has his favorites no doubt Santon will start against Villa.

 

But isn't Obi's wedding dress in a glass case in the Museum?

 

isn't part of the problem that MA doesn't see us as his customers? We are a very distant 2nd to the TV companies.

 

Alas that doesn't seem to apply any more. If one realises that one has a virtual monopoly and a constant customer base the recent trend is to do the opposite. Look at the likes of Microsoft, Amazon, Google, the mobile phone networks and other large corporations. In all cases it's nigh on impossible to find a contact number or a person in these companies. They don't engage with you, they active distance themselves from you.

It's only the smaller companies, such as my own, which tries to put a premium onto customer interaction and, hopefully, cutstomer satisfaction. The larger corporations know that the average person is willing to put up their obtuse methods - when was the last time you complained to someone at Amazon, Yahoo or Google? Ashley knows it's much the same here; he's got a product that he can sell out each time it goes into production (i..e each match day and every ticket) so he doesn't need to descend to customer interaction.

You see, proper businesses these days don't do this outdated and old fashioned stuff. If they can get away with, for example, 'local rate' calls to an overseas 'help' desk then they will. They don't care for customer satisfaction as there's no place for it on the company accounts' spreadsheet.

 

This!! IMO I think its time a continental manager came in to get the best out of our mainly (french) based squad. Ben Arfa is clearly our most gifted footballer, can pards honestly say he has got the best out of him in the last 2 seasons. Big fat No from me

 

But how much of the lack of signings in January was down to Mike Ashley not making cash available (or enough cash available) and how much was down to Kinnear not being about to close a deal?

Does anyone know when the next fans forum meeting is? Will be interesting to see what answers are given by the club to the obvious questions that are going to be asked.

 

There's supposed to be another one in 11 days. Haven't seen it confirmed anywhere though.

 

Come on, Hacky - did you see Pardew on the touchline?! More than a touch of the Steve McLaren's about him, that's for sure!!

Look, I don't profess to claim he's the beginning and end of all problems - but I just can't stomach his one-dimensional, no-plan-b, rely on individuals bullsh!t anymore. Ironic that we got fcking spanked by Spurs - because if we'd lost 4-0 at WHL last year it wouldn't have complimented Spurs, to be honest. That was down to Tim Krul and you can point to more than a few of those where a lack of coherence has been masked by individual talent. Loic Remy, Demba Ba, Papiss Cisse alongside stoic defending have given Pardew far more points than he had any right to. The problem is when the chips are really down, when it really matters, it just doesn't happen. Ever. When we had to, absolutely had to beat Everton to stand any chance of getting to the CL (wouldn't anyway, but we didn't know that in the game), it was poor, a whimpery performance. When we faced Sunderland, we should have won, got beat. We then HAVE to win the next game - each time we've been tanked AT HOME by Sunderland, we've turned up and played EVEN WORSE!! 0-6 last year, 0-4 this year. Indiscipline, low morale and to cap it off the player HE CHOSE as captain is having a giggle with Lloris at the end of the match?!:!!??!??!?!?!??!??!?! Then there's the cup games, the must-wins against Reading or Wigan, the fact that - for whatever reason - so many players go backwards under his stewardship and the fact that he dedicated the win against Chelsea to Mike fcking Ashley. He's clearly made his bed, so he can fck off darn sarf and lie in it.

Honest, Hacky, you can't defend him. You can state, rightly, that changing him will not cure the cancer at the heart of this club. We all agree, Ashley MUST go, somehow, if we want to go forward. But defend Pardew now? Impossible. He's in serious danger of eclipsing Allardyce.

 

According to the Chronicle:

After the game it was Ben Arfa and Marveaux that Pardew singled out and lambasted. They were poor but so was the whole team. They all deserved to be treated with equal contempt. Singling out two players who played less than half the match is pure scapegoating.

Santon apparently left the ground after being subbed off at half time.

Some of the players were 'furious' when told that their Saturday off was cancelled. *****oses.

Cabaye was helping Pardew keep order in the dressing room.

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/spor...ealed-alan-pardews-explosive-dressing-6708659



If the above is accurate it seems that Pardew is being weak, singling out a few of his least favourites when many (including his precious Sissoko etc) have let NUFC down. It also sounds very much as though he has lost the dressing room.

Combined with the visible evidence from the match - not just the performance but moments like seeing Gouffran jog other to the touchline to talk to Pardew during a break in play, seeing Pardew mouth 'Go away' to his player rather than give any instructions, then turn and sit down... Defeated. His song is sung and his race is run for me.

 

This bit is everything that is wrong with the warped assessments of Pards reign. Whilst I can accept he deserves royal criticism for the lows, it is completely ridiculous to not give him credit for the highs. When we were finishing 5th and achieving way more than our squad was capable of, he deserves the credit. When we were rocking this season and playing lovely football, looking defensively sound, he deserves credit. There is no doubt he struggled to juggle the Europa last year and failed pretty miserably to do so. Plenty of good managers have and will continue to. Equally his record in the derbies and this latest run, he has certainly struggled again. He is by no means the man I'd want in charge in an ideal world, but in the circumstances I do think it is better the devil you know with Ashley. We simply will not have the ambition to go and get someone progressive. they won't want to come. Top managers go where the investment is. Its quite simple, you cannot truely progress in the modern game without investment. You need a sugar daddy unless you have a youth system like Dortmund or Barca. Not many clubs have!

Whenever you analyse his reign (or any other for that matter) surely it is only fair to analyse it against the backdrop of the support they receive from the board and the stability at that level. We are a ****ing joke and personally I think it is one of the most difficult jobs around. The fans are both a positive and negative factor. They've been on so many rollercoasters that we are just a few games from the next crisis or pushing for Europe! Its fecking crazy at times. I don't blame the fans, the last 10 years have been utter ****. One poor-average manager after another, money pissed away on mercenaries and crap players, followed by a tightening of the belts which makes me look generous.

One really negative fans factor - all **** off down south and cockney hatred stuff is quite frankly embarrassing.

I said quite some time ago that the guy I would have went for in the summer when he was under threat then was Poyet. I could name a long wish list of people who could do a fine job with the right backing. They'll never get that here and will simply be charged with keeping the head just bobbing above water. So by all means sack the guy, it just seems a futile exercise until you have cured the real problem. Could work as a short term fix and the timing I'd actually disagree with FREDDD and say is pretty good. You can simply place a Beardo or the like in charge and see how it goes. If it doesn't work then the choice will be greater in the summer for the next patsy. All said and done though, Pads could walk away with his head high against the backdrop he has been operating with.