acrossthepond

Pardew is past the point of no redemption for me now, just like the numpties who run the club from above him. To be beaten by that pack of inbred cloggers 3 times going, and two 0-3 losses at home, is inexcusable. But that won't stop Pardew from trying to make excuses. This is NUFC: Players who don't give a fuck, a puppet as manager, a drunken moron decades past his sell-by date, and a fat chancer who only sees $$$$$$$$$.

Me too, sad to say. It's going to be an ugly mood after the past month's fiasco and if the mackems score first, all hell could break loose.

Don't worry, CT and BigWalrus will soon be along to tell us what good business all of this was and how pushing for a European place is just not sustainable in today's Premier League or some such other utter bullshit. We finished 5th on minimal outlay in 2012. We weakened the squad in the subsequent transfer window. That tells you all that needs to be told about Mike Ashley's plan for this club. The only progress we're making is on the balance sheet.

Never going to happen.

If I can use a local example, fans of the New York Mets (baseball team) have an infamous creed: "There's always next year." They've been shit literally for decades but since there's no relegation in American sport, they just linger around the mid-bottom places of the division and occasionally make a desultory push for a play-off spot. But every year their fans lap up the bullshit from their general manager (like a director of football) and believe that next year they're going places, and next year they're going to spend big and attract the top players. Sound familiar? The excuse that we did our summer spending in January last year to save us from relegation is hard to argue with. But I think the 2012-2013 summer already demonstrated that there is no genuine ambition at this club except to avoid relegation, and I think this summer will prove it beyond all doubt. This window has been another disaster and it's obvious to all that Kinnear is utterly useless except, as you said, as a distraction for the fans, first taking pressure off Pardew and now off of Ashley for their respective failings. If we see Ashley jettison him before next season and somebody else brought in and empowered to go after players, then we'll know that this has all been part of some Ashley strategy. If we see Kinnear still hanging around like a bad smell and loan signings of players we first scouted 3 windows ago coming in to replace outgoing first team players, then we'll know (if we didn't already) that we're England's version of the Mets.

Yeah, I reckon he's there to be had if we up our bid just a bit. Maybe this is Fat Mike's idea of playing hardball.

That's fucking bullshit. Another decision made against us by our friends at the FA. Did Ashley forget the Christmas cards or something?

Or, maybe, it was the obvious and massive gulf in class between our midfielders and theirs. We were simply better than them. We were forced into playing one striker one way or the other because of injuries, but I maintain that Remy is not suited for a lone striker role and has been ineffectual in that role throughout the season. He's looked a lot better, and so have we, I'd say, when Shola was up front along side him. If we just swap the suspended Remy for Shola or de Jong on Saturday I believe we'll struggle.

Has to be him and Shola up front if Gouffran is injured. I thought Sissoko was brilliant through the middle yesterday but we might have to push him out wide again with Ben Arfa on the other side - needs must and I don't think Sammy is ready to start a derby, especially one that might be a season-decider for both of us like this one. More likely is more of the one-striker shit from Pardew with yesterday's formation except Shola in for Remy. It's all speculation until we see who's out and who's in, but I think Gouffran's fitness will be key to this game.

Aye, like I said, send him back at the end of his loan if it doesn't work out.

He's a player our scouts have been looking at for quite some time and I'm actually reasonably confident that he will be a success here. This is not a panic buy of some unknown name an agent thrust at us, it's a player who's been on the radar of our top scout and even if he isn't a smash hit, I feel like Carr knows what he's on about and that this is a player who can do a job for us in the Premier League. Most of our signings seem to fall into the "bargain" category (i.e. Ba, Cabaye, Marveaux, Amalfitano, Sissoko, Gouffran) or the "thoroughly and patiently scouted over multiple windows" category (i.e. Debuchy, Cisse.) This might be both. Nowt wrong with that, and if he's no good, we send him back at the end of his loan. The only problem here is that our esteemed owner and director of fuck-all are likely to think this it's job done after bringing in a striker when we've needed 2 (3 even, since Remy is not ours and Cisse and Shola may soon not be either) for years.

Very good.

As much as he and Mike despise it. I also saw on the BBC that we were "in the hunt for the dubious prize of a Europa League place." I don't consider it a dubious prize at all. I would love us to compete in it every year and think winning it is not beyond us (or any decent PL side like us) with the proper investment and ambition. You only had to see how well our second team did in it last time round to know if we qualify we're in with a shout of making the quarterfinals or beyond.

A really good performance from him. I still worry when he shapes up to shoot but in terms of keeping the midfield tick over he did it very well today so credit where credit's due.

That was awful. Obviously our squad is so strong that we didn't even bring on a 3rd sub in an easily winnable game and it doesn't need reinforcements at all, especially not in the striker department. Another season chucked away on the back of performances like that, which are down to a weak squad. Scratch the gold of our first 11 and the pure, base copper of our shit squad players shines through.

Sammy's looked fucked for fifteen minutes now, surely we must have someone to put on. Give the Armstrong lad a go, at least he'd be a willing and fresh runner.

Idiotic of Remy to retaliate, Johnson should've gone for the savage kick and elbow to the back of his neck in the first place. No need for Remy to make a move, if he doesn't then Johnson walks alone.

So Sissoko is the Cabaye "replacement" for today, as he's gone into the middle? We'll see how it works out today. He's good at driving attacks forward, I'll definitely give him that, but he lacks any of the craftiness of Cabaye and his decision-making is poor.

Real reason in bold. Another good french player is needed in the squad for home-grown regulations.

Or, that Arsenal were massively lowballing us, which they were, with that feeble 10m offer.

We shouldn't have taken less than 25 million. They haggle over half a million for Debuchy and let Cabaye go for almost 10 million less than his value (initial fee only, not taking add-ons into account.) Penny wise and pound foolish.

Please don't even mention Thauvin. That ship has not just sailed but it has disappeared over the horizon. He's signed for what, 2 different clubs since we expressed interest?

Gouffran for 1.4 is equally a steal. We did good business in that window. I thought maybe the corner was turning, but that just turned out to be this summer's spend being spent early.

We are "out of sync." It's intentional. We do have a scout at the club who knows what he's doing, so we identify good targets, then buy them not when we need them but 6 months later after more time on their contracts has ticked down and they're available on the cheap. We've needed a Ba replacement since he left. Signed Remy (on loan) 6 months later. The squad desperately needed strengthening in the 12-13 summer. We bought no-one, then signed 5 players in January 6 months later. When Shola and Cisse go this summer, along with Jonas and other squad players, we'll replace them the following January, after their absence has already cost us. But it'll be cheaper to do so!

Fair enough. We panic bought in January when we were going down, and Kuqi as a replacement for Carroll was tantamount to a "panic signing." I'd like to think Ashley (and Llambias, while he was still here) had learned from those mistakes but I suspect they haven't.