Who Can Still Defend Pardew's Substitutions?

If I'd have put away all the chances that I could have when I was young, I could be playing for Newcastle and people would be jizzing all over me. But I didn't, because I wasn't good enough. I didn't stumble around fiddling with my socks when I wasn't shooting either.

 

Spot on O.P. HBA should be starting games like this unless injured and to not get picked to come on infront of any of the 3 who came on today is confusing to say the least. Have to say I didn't think Obertan was terrible but like others have said dissapeared in the 2nd half and Ameobi could have done worse (but it is Shola, give him credit for finding the energy to get out of bed today)

 

By the way I'm not trying to defend Shola's performance, it was awful, I'm defending the idea behind the substitution. Based on past performances Shola has been decent, played well against Norwich, was one our best players when he came on against Chelsea and of course scored that goal of the bench against Spurs to save us a point. How the **** do you expect Pardew to know exactly how a player is going to play when he brings him on? If only he had you guy's gift of foresight to know that Ben Arfa surely would have won the match for us. Ben Arfa has also been good and I assume the decision was 50/50 and he went with Shola, next week he might go with Ben Arfa.

The other subs were logical in that we needed to take Obertan off and Sammy was the only player to replace him and Vuckic and Abeid are going to be the two players in contention for CM next week so he needed to give Vuckic precious minutes.

 

You shouldn't forget that we don't have the strongest bench in the League... Most of the time his subs have been logical but on the other hand some of his starting lineups have been sh*t e.g reshuffling our defence last week, playing Loven over Sammy against Chelsea ...

 

Ben Arfa was utterly woeful against Chelsea. Less effort and less end product than Shola and Obertan. Played with his head down and looked huffed. Just because he's RW in FIFA doesn't mean he can play there, particularly not in our current set up.

No surprises this comes from people watching it online, not at the match.

 

Nobody can say Ben Arfa should have started based on the performance in the first half. We dominated them. But he definitely should have come on at around 65-70 minutes. Pardew shouldn't have said Ben Arfa is ONLY going to play in the hole. Ben Arfa would have ruined Naylor on the wing.

 

Well at least we played well but didn't score, however we need to get a win now on Wednesday night. To be honest I think we can beat West Brom because they will come and have a go. Swansea have a very good defense to be fair.

 

Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing all the time and expecting a different result. On this premise, I can only infer that Pardew is insane!

 

Take each game as it comes and set your stall to suit.

 

Atmosphere sounded quite flat and deflated , was it different inside the stadium?

 

Think West Brom on Wed will be 2-1 either way. They'll come to score and win, they're not a sit back and defend team.

 

@Clarence Acuna

Absolutely spot on mate, HBA is not a winger, if Pardew brought him on RW today there'd be more chance of us moaning that he'd lost his man or didn't cover Simpson when conceding a goal, rather than him taking everybody on and then scoring with an overhead kick, as most people expect him to do. Shola was poor today but on recent performances he deserved to play ahead of HBA today. He'll get his chance on Wednesday night.
BTW the word for Obertan is 'frustrating'. I'd like to add that Cabaye's set pieces were shocking today, one of those games I suppose; I still love him.

 

Look what happened last season, it cost us dearly!

 

I'm confident we'll win , however , you should know I was confident that we'd beat Norwich and Swansea...

 

Its quite simple.

We dominated this game. The only thing we lacked was to create something a bit special in the final third. Swansea were never gonna score against us.

So yea, bringing on Ben Arfa would have been an obvious mistake............

Pardew is f*cking useless at substitutions. Ive said it all season come win come loss come draw.

Its a fact.

SAMMY F*CKING AMEOBI? My god!

 

Ben Arfa should be starting. Every game i've seen him play, he's done well. I'm worried Sammy may turn into a 'Shola'..Just lovable.

 

This! Sammy has a few Shola tendencies about him and it worries me. Vuckic looks like he will be good though. Confident on the ball.

 

Nowhere as good as I thought it would be.

 

Today against Swansea would have been ideal for HBA, he was a huge miss especially the second half, I hope he's not out of favour with Pardew but it seems bizarre that he isn't starting.

 

Didn't get home home till late tonight, when Best came off, I was happy because I thought Ben Arfa was coming on, then it turned out it was Shola. At the end, we brought on Sameobi and Vuckic instead? Crazy.

Tbh, I'd rather Shane Ferguson came on, as well as Benny