Final Straw...

Santon clearly understands the fans. He's been with a Geordie lass since he came here so she will have helped him understand what football means to us.
So clearly Pardew didn't tell the players to turn around and go to the fans then?
Why am I not surprised.
It would have taken one call to Carver... but no.... he will have scuttled back under his rock.
Poor form by players AND manager there.
Chaps like AB effectively wrote off a weekend for that set of twats.

 

Mate apart from those three the rest couldn't get of the pitch quick enough. Williamson gave a half hearted clap from the halfway line but then even he scuttled down the tunnel faster than a rat up a drain pipe.

 

Would the likes of Shearer, Speed, Nobby... hell even Barton and Nolan have done that?.. nope.
In fact would Keegan or SBR have let ANY player walk off like that?

The players will see the fans as moany bastards but all we wanna see is a bit of effort. The least talented player on the planet can give at least that.
You find a lot out about players when you don't play well...

 

It was very disappointing but sadly completely unsurprising. Pardew has his favorites and those he doesn't like so much... Sadly this isn't always reflective of footballing ability. I think Ben Arfa is an arm around the shoulder type player who could have been great for us if correctly managed. Instead he has been wasted. Pardew has previous - he was doing the same with Tevez and Mascherano at West Ham... Unless anyone really thinks that Harewood etc were the better choice.

 

Was surprised that there weren't any chants calling for Pardew to go to be fair.

 

Christian Gourcuff set to announce his departure from Lorient tomorrow. We could do a lot worse than him as our manager.

I still think Pardew just about deserves a chance with some financial backing in the summer but completely understand why some want him gone.

 

If Gourcuff wanted to join then Pardew should be hastily shown to the door. I just can't see MA making any changes after passing up the chance to sack him after the headbutt.

 

It was very poor on Pardew's part. Gouffran was a bit of a disgrace to be honest. I want to believe that it was down to him struggling to cope with the physical demands this season has placed on him. He has worked very hard throughout the season. However it did look like a lack of effort. There were a few others too and the quality of our passing was inexcuseable.

However I would dispute HBA being poorly managed. He has very much had every approach tried. We went arm round the shoulder, then tough love, then back to arm round the shoulder and we appear to be back at tough love. Sometimes regardless of Pardew's limitations, some culpability has to lie with the player. The bottom line for me is HBA is a bit of a waster. Nobody coming to rescure him from his so called Pardew nightmare is very telling. His weight fluctuations are indicative of a lad wo just isn't interested in the side of football which requires a bit of effort. I think we can lay quite a few things at Pardew's door, however I don't believe HBA's failure to realise his potential is one of them. Plenty managers have tried and failed with him.

 

This doesn't actually surprise me. We keep hearing about the manager, there is no doubt he has struggled at various times, is limited and the team under him fluctuate between over achieving and under achieving quite wildly. However I don't think we should be forgetting what many pinpointed as a problem at various stages, the team lacks backbone and some of the players lack a bit of mental fortitude/don't give enough of a **** about the club. Pardew has his part to play in Saturdays defeat but the single biggest factor was a lack of effort from the players. Regardless what tactics/formations/selections you make, if you refuse to run around and try at this level, you'll get mullered every time.

The manager is reponsible for motivation and setting us up right. If the players aren't playing for him because they don't like him, whilst I would not agree with it at all, you can find an angle for making an excuse for a lack of effort. Unfortunately for these t**ts that excuse went out the window when they all gave press interviews about being right behind him. I bet they f**king are, because he defends them to the hilt and acts as a shield to take all the criticism for their pathetic efforts at times. I know I joke about Pardew at times, but those players efforts on Saturday were no laughing matter when people are paying good money to travel. I can't level that at Pardew personally because I've seen enough **** managers at this football club to know it doesn't prevent a team from trying. Graeme Souness was a far worse manager than Pardew, but I don't recall the like of Shearer, Solano, Carr, Parker not arsing themselves to try!

I'd quite like a change in management at the end of this season or before, but we also need a major overhaul of the squad and complete change in our transfer policy. Yes we have achieved the goals for this season, but we will never get any further with this bunch of heart like split pea t**ts. They are fairweather players, and we need some backbone heading forward.

 

This post has brightened my entire day. Sure, it's not going to happen, but all I ask for, from a team, from a performance, from a player, from a manager, is hope. I'll take the 'hope' that we get shot of our existing toerag of a manager and bring in someone useful, no matter how slim the chance is.

 

I can see why you have the opinion you do - he is overweight and clearly not the most professional. He is a player who runs hot and cold but I still believe that if we had a manager who had genuine faith in him then we would have seen more of the hot. Pardew sticks by other non-performing players to the point where it is infuriating yet Ben Arfa only needs one poor game after several very good match winning performances to be ditched from the starting 11. He doesn't have to be a genius to understand that his manager doesn't really like him and I think he is the sort of fragile personality where this will impact massively with his confidence and performance levels. People may have been saying that Tevez obviously couldn't cut it in the Premier League - or Mascherano - if Pardew had remained in charge of West Ham. Tevez himself commented that he was being asked to play in unfamiliar roles with no real explanation of what was wanted, ended up going through the longest barren spell of his career and was punished for not performing well enough. He also says that there was never a reason given for Mascherano consistently being left out. As soon as Pardew left Tevez was played consistently and began scoring and putting in match winning performances. Obviously they are completely different players but I don't think Pardew's opinion of whether a player is good enough is particularly trustworthy given his previous, and it is the judgment of this manager that has impacted on Ben Arfa's performances.

 

I completely agree with this. We have too many players who are completely passionless for the club. A team can have a few if they are talented enough as long as the spine of the team really cares. I would say that we have too many who joined us as a stepping stone (Sissoko etc) or who did love it here but have grown disillusioned and want out (Tiote?). We also have too much average and not enough great - an unfortunate side effect of MA policy of selling absolutely anyone who begins performing very well consistently.

 

Hope will turn to despair again as soon as Gourcuff joins a team with an owner who cares about improving rather than just surviving for the mulah.

 

Ok, assuming Mike Ashley is a human being, someone who eats, sh!ts, sleeps and breathes, what is he likely to be thinking at the moment?

I think he strongly disagrees with the fans' opinion on spending. I think he will look at this squad, look at the outlay in Jan 2013, and accept that whilst we should have signed one or two more - for which Kinnear paid the ultimate price - the squad's ok, so probably ignores the general vitriol that heads his way as a result. In league placing, this is also reflected - the squad is at best the 7th best in the league, at worst the 9th best.

However, he has taken the unusual step of attending matches recently. Why? He's bore witness to the humiliations against Everton and Southampton, but why's he even watching them? He has taken little/no interest for years in the club's on-pitch activity. What would you be thinking if you were him? Would you be happy, convinced that what you saw was a good thing, a decent advertisement for your brand, a good reflection on you as the owner?

 

To be honest I don't think the Tevez and Mascherano cases were that simple. I think there was something very fishy about that whole affair with the whole third party problem. He only played under Pardew from mid Sept until the end of December. They came from playing in Brazil into the PL, and it is quite challenging for players. They struggled but in the 2nd half of the season Tevez began to get to grips with it. Some take 6 months, some take 18 months. You only have to look at our own with Solano, Colo and currently Mbiwa. He only stayed at West Ham for 1 season all told. They just used West Ham to get out of Brazil. They never integrated into the squad. As a manager that is quite tricky to manage. You know these guys ave no interest in your club and are likely to be there for a very short period. West Ham knew it too because they entered into the contract. I think they only got something like 1m-2m to release Tevez's registration! So it is really a mute point about whether they would cut it in the PL if Pardew had stayed at West Ham. Even if he had, they wouldn't have and had no intention of doing so at any stage.

 

According to Tevez himself his form only changed once Pardew was sacked and Brooking started playing him consistently in the position he was best in. He instantly rewarded the change with goals, great performances and ultimately survival for West Ham. It's doubtful in the extreme that being played out of position and favoring Harewood was Pardew easing him in and helping him adapt. It's not hard to manage or a difficult decision to make - Tevez being started in his favored position once Pardew had left is what kept West Ham up.

 

You ask this of the man who watched first hand Kinnear 'manage' (term used loosely) the team and decided to later appoint him as director of football. At what point has he given any evidence to believe that he cares what reflection his decisions have on him as an owner? There is no evidence at all that he is interested in any achievement greater than continued participation in the money league, but plenty to the contrary. Any hope that MA is going to undergo a sudden shift of motivation with regards NUFC is always going to be based on thin air... I hope you are right though!

 

Players always have a plentitude of reasons why they have performed well at some times, and then not at others. I don't often put much credence in what they come out with as they rarely look in the mirror or have a grasp on factors such as struggling to adapt. Was there not some story about Tevez throwing a tantrum pretty early on and the players decided he should wear a Brazil shirt as a punishment! He obviously refused. I think it would be fair to say they did not exactly fit in. It was a weird situation as everyone knew they were just using the club. Tevez was just making excuses for his own faults.

Of course I'd pick Tevez ahead of Harewood. I think this is a bit of myth though because he wasn't picking him ahead of Tevez. It goes back to one match where he benched Tevez after the bust up. He brought Harewood off at half time in the game to send Tevez on. I think Harewood was nearly always benched. Tevez played every game as a striker alongside Zamora and just wasn't firing. It took him time to adapt. I think even Sheringham was ahead of Harewood in the pecking order and Carlton Cole.

Its still a difficult situation to manage when you have two players thrust upon you who are indsipute with their former club, have no interest in really playing for your club, and don't fit in with the rest of the squad. Do you just play them regardless and upset all the players who are unhappy with their behaviour? Favouring the superstars over the rest? It was just a bad fit.

Was it Brooking? I thought Curbishley took over from Pardew? Tevez is often hailed as the guy who kept them up but most Hammers fans I know felt Zamora was equally important and scored more important goals, Tevez is just remembered more because of the Man U goal. Obviously they would say that because many felt they should have been relegated because the signing were actually against the rules.

 

Yeah I think you are right - Brooking was before Pardew and then West Ham and Charlton did some managerial swapping.

With regards to Tevez and his comments about Pardew, the fact that once Pardew left he immediately began scoring and playing well seems to back him up pretty convincingly. He is often hailed as the guy who kept them up and was named 'Hammer of the Year' eventually (is there a club nicknamed The Spanners anywhere?), so I'm guessing people at West Ham agreed with his importance to the team once the Pardew shackles had been removed.

 

I was very disappointed by Saturday's result by all accounts we were dreadful. Also disappointed by Pardew's comments that we can't compete financially with Saints, BS its only because our owner won't splash the cash.