Who would you like to see come in...

I do think he has done a fantastic job here. I had my reservations but he has us really well set up. Has he or the team been at their fantastic best this season? No but nowhere have I suggested they have.

I'll be blunt here as you have with me, I think you're being fickle to be honest. You are judging a man on an 11 game period and showing a complete lack of patience. I understand the modern way is to look at things in isolation and not take a long view of things. I just think it is wrong, and is the road to instability. We have made a solid enough start in a tough league with a fairly tough opening set of fixtures. Had we won on Sunday, ask yourself where we'd have been. I think people like yourself need to give themself a shake and take a step back to look at the bigger picture.

 

What would concern me more was if Pardew was sticking his head in the sand and not acknowledging that the team are not firing on all cylinders at the moment.
He has lamented their lack of flow and has openly admitted that he is at a loss to know why this is.

Okay, that's an honest critique from him and it's his job, no it's his absolute responsibility to put things right.
At the end of the day either we trust he has the technical skills and man-management capabilities to achieve this, or we do not have faith in him. Personally l think he is more than capable of turning things around and l believe he will. One things for sure though, turning on him or the team won't help.
We are not setting the world on fire, granted, but it's not that bad either.

 

It's not about being blunt mate, last year Pardew was great, nobody can deny that. However this season he's been poor. Does that mean he should lose his job? Of course it doesn't, it also doesn't put him above criticism.

For arguments sake let's say this was Pardew's first season, how would you rate his performance? Surely you wouldn't class it as "fantastic" based on the first 11 games???

As for asking myself where we'd be if we won on Sunday, well that's irrelevant because we didn't. It's like me saying ask yourself where we'd be if we didn't get the undeserved & extremely lucky winner against West Brom with the last kick of the game? We'd be 6 points from relegation and the team in 18th would have a game in hand on us.

Over the duration of his whole tenure Pardew has done very well, no arguments with that. Over the first 3 months of this season he's not been of the required standard (the standard he set for himself/us), he therefore needs to raise the bar a little. As I said, at the game (the two a season I attend) him and the team would have nothing less than my full support, but on a forum where fans have the opportunity to express opinion without it affecting the players/manager then it's a different story.

 

As I said originally he hasn't at his best this season in terms of preparing the players mentally and also biting the bullet over certain scenarios. But overall the club is in great health on and off the pitch and Pardew has done a fantastic job in his time at the club. I have never claimed he has been fantastic this season, but nor has he been terrible. He has done ok.

We'll have to agree to disagree on whether asking where we'd be if we'd won on Saturday is relevant. It is abundantly clear to me that it is because I'm talking about looking at the bigger picture and not over-reacting. The league is extremely tight (as you have actually indicated yourself) and we are less than a third of the way into the season to put it in perspective. It is yet to settle and give a TRUE picture of where each club is heading. We were fairly average early doors last season, didn't play fantastic football but were more solid. That is understandable given the extra games and more settled nature of the side last season (injuries/suspensions). We hit our best spell after Xmas when we freed ourselves a bit.

We are lucky to have him and there were some fickle posts the other night, whether its a football forum or not!