Pardew Was 'Ridiculous'

That was a strange opening day to the season. Marveaux went AWOL as he was going to be named on the bench after initially being out of the squad but no-one could find him. Pardew got sent off for pushing a linesman because he didn't give a throw in. We played absolutely abysmal...but after all that, we still won! Unbelievable.

Pardew said to the BBC that his behaviour was ridiculous after pushing a linesman, and he is right he was ridiculous...but his team set up was more ridiculous than pushing some lino. What is he seeing we all aren't? Could he not see Ba and Cisse totally void of any service as our midfield struggled to cope with defending against Spurs 5 midfielder's, than once doing so struggling to provide any decent forward play. He had a pretty good view from up in the stands but refused to change anything until the 85th minute when it didn't make a blind bit of difference.
We won. We're happy. I am not complaining. However, just because Demba Ba picked out a peach and Ben Arfa is an absolute beast doesn't hide the fact that Spurs should have won that game and we were dog awful for 90% of that match. The first half was a write off. Did we even create a genuine chance? It's boll*cks.

We have some cracking players in our team but most of which are not being allowed to show it by being suffocated in this pre-historic, nonsensical, ineffective horsesh*t. Jonas is not a winger, he has no real pace and cant cross to save his life even when he does manage to get beyond the middle of the pitch. Cabaye needs to get forward to create his magic but can't because he is up against 3 centre midfielder's and would leave Chiek totally exposed. Cheik's good, but he isn't that good. Ben Arfa was getting more frustrated as the day went on. He was getting none of the ball so decided to take the bull by the horn's and drift into the centre. This decision saved our asses. He and Cabaye combined in the attacking third for the first time in the whole game on 54 minutes and we scored off it. The goal also came from one of the very few crosses we even attempted in the game. So why not do this more often? It obviously works. Last season we had one of the best chances to goal ratio in the league. So common sense tells you that if we were to create more chance's, we would score more goals. It's that simple.

Not one NUFC fan can genuinely say we played well yesterday and most of them will say given the choice, they would much rather see us line-up in the 4-3-3 formation we all witnessed last season as it has more fluidity, it suits our players and is a hell of a lot more effective and exciting than this flat 4-4-2 nonsense. We win games IN SPITE of this flat set-up not because of it. We got lucky yesterday. Mainly because Spurs don't have much fire power (strangely), if they had, they would have won that game & none of us could have complained. What I don't understand is that most of us can see how much of a better team we are in the other formation & also see how dull we are in this one...but the one man who counts can't. Alan Pardew is the man who introduced the 4-3-3 in the first place! Someone explain this to me.
Just get back to 4-3-3 asap. Please.

What was worrying before we had even kicked a ball yesterday is that Silvain Marveaux seemed to go AWOL on us. He wasn't in the original squad, which is ridiculous considering his pre-season brilliance, and it seems he didn't like it so packed his bag and f*cked off home to watch the game on the telly. However, Shola than got himself injured in the warm up (different season, same old Shola) and he was than going to be named on the bench...but no-one could find him. What is going on?
First off what is Pard's thinking not having Marveaux in the squad? Is he on crack? Is that why he is pushing linesman around? Because he is off his tit's? Secondly, how do you lose a player? Marveaux was obviously disgusted at being dropped indefinetly but he shouldn't be leaving the stadium under any circumstances. Perhap's Pard's is saving him for the Greece trip on Thursday, which is understandable. In this case what are you doing Marv's? How is p*ssing off home gonna get you in the team? Bad form. Hopefully this will be sorted out soon.

Anyway, we won and judging by how toothless Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool are looking...am I the only one with a sneaky eye on that 4th place spot? Seems up for grabs to me.

Howay!