Game On! Sunderland v Newcastle

Sunderland's Stadium of Light.

Sunderland's Stadium of Light.
Mackems v Mags
Hold onto your hats, it’s about to get bumpy! And I’m not talking about the weather either…

The latest instalment of the Tyne-Wear derby will soon be upon us and with it will come the inevitable conflicting myriad of emotion.

The last feeling I had regarding this fixture was one of hurt, embarrassment even. That 3-0 defeat wasn’t nice but at least I now kind of understand how a Mackem feels. I don’t want to experience that again but unfortunately I can’t do a lot about it. It’s up to the players to make amends but a brief sit down with a DVD of that game at St James’ Park last season should at least get the players fired up for it.

Anyway, I really don’t need to go on. We all know what this means and on the other side of the divide is a fan base who will be thinking and feeling exactly the same as we are.

The match preview went online yesterday so it’s there for you to view if you wish to do so. It’s accessible using the links at the bottom of the page and features injury news, stats, facts and a history of the fixture. The official team news will be published below as and when it becomes available.

For a number of reasons this game is an early kick-off. Safety is one but also Sky TV have had their say as they always seem to do. The good news with that though is that the match is live on the TV here in the UK so catching a stream should be that little bit easier. Also a whole host of overseas channels are broadcasting the match thus increasing the possibilities further so if you do find a decent stream then please share it by leaving a link in the ‘comments’ section below.

That’s it. I’m off to bite my fingers down to the bone. See you on the other side!

Howay the lads!

Sunderland: Kieren Westwood, Phil Bardsley, Andrea Dossena, John O’Shea, Carlos Cuellar, Lee Cattermole, Jack Colback, Sebastian Larsson, Adam Johnson, Jozy Altidore, Steven Fletcher

Subs: Vito Mannone, Ki Sung-Yueng, Craig Gardner, Ondrej Celustka, Emanuele Giaccherini, Valentin Roberge, Fabio Borini

Newcastle: Tim Krul; Mathieu Debuchy, Mike Williamson, Paul Dummett, Davide Santon; Moussa Sissoko, Cheik Tiote, Yohan Cabaye; Yoan Gouffran, Hatem Ben Arfa, Loic Remy

Subs: Rob Elliot, Massadio Haïdara, Vurnon Anita, Gabriel Obertan, Sammy Ameobi, Shola Ameobi, Papiss Cissé

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

519 thoughts on “Game On! Sunderland v Newcastle

  1. is it the players that needs to find consistency? do they purposely play **** for one half of the game then look some-what interested the other half?

    Should Benny/ Sissoko naturally play left wing / right wing, upfront within one game?

    or could it be Pardews fault for all of the above??

    Im sure hes fell-out with Collo and Cabaye regarding the way we play..

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  2. A cup run would endanger our remaining in the Prem. If we field our best 11 against Man City we will probably have less chance to get a point against or even play well against Chelsea. That will be the thinking. Scrape a point wherever we can and stay in the Prem even if we end up 15th, 16th, or 17th. It’s the mindset of the owner. He has stopped even pretending he has any football ambition. After the 5th place finish Ashley, Llambias and Pardew were full of themselves and Pardew used to constantly go on about winning a cup. Now that we’ve returned to reality with the Ashley method it won’t be mentioned again. Instead we’ll get excuses and whining from Joe about how unfair the world is and how poor our owner is. No effort to increase our commercial income whatsoever. Maybe it’s time to lay off a few more staff.

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  3. I’m seriously wondering if my daft idea (borne of boredom with tech documents on my desk) may be worth pursuing! Anyone know how to get in touch with the Time For a Change lot?

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  4. @WHUMPIE

    good idea but two fingers might be deemed a little aggressive, thumbs down would be an alternative… messes up the 4 at 40 tho lol

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  5. Not sure. I like the two fingers thing, but I’ve had a ***** day and the idea of a weekly mass-insult to someone who has contributed to that appeals to my sick, over-aggressive nature. :mrgreen:

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  6. I thought with the players we have that we would have built a very good carpet football team, especially up front. I just find it hard to believe that a top manager couldn’t find a way to get Remy, Ben Arfa, Cabaye, Gouffran, and probably even Cisse playing some brilliant attacking football. With an in form Sissoko and Tiote in behind them and a well organized defense we should play much better than we do. I know who that makes me think is at fault in large part for the actual on field results. We have bigger problems higher up the club as well.

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  7. What would people say has been the level of effort by our owner to increase our commercial revenue? It’s under 14M pounds in the most recent statements. How much publicity do we get in big foreign markets? Where is our scouting when it comes to places like Asia and North America? Who was the last decent young Mexican player to be scouted by us? How can we just continue to focus on one country for our scouting? It’s bizarre given the nature of the Prem now. Just a few questions for the owner.

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  8. I think the owner has taken a few steps back again instead of moving forward. We did that one tour of the States which didn’t turn out well but it was poorly organized and we didn’t play the right sort of teams. It was a shmozzle if I remember correctly. That seems to have put Mike off again. Also picking a fight with the press is only going to end in more tears for him. And the Kinnear hiring. And the lack of ambition and desire to bring the right management people into the club. There is a fairly long list of problems.

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  9. G2 commercial revunue? which companys wants to be tarred with the same brush as SD not many is my guess,anyway jabba just worries what HE gets out of it not the club,never known the club in such a bloody mess,even on this cup game the board has said they have no interest in cup games while pardew says they are, the club a shambles 🙁

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  10. Yes, sad to see it icedog mate. No clear plan at all. It seems almost as if we have several little factions in the hierarchy. Does Joe ever talk to Alan? If so what would they talk about? The club have already said there is very little money to spend because it would drive us into the red. What is Joe’s function then if he has almost no money to spend? He hasn’t sold anyone so no windfall coming in as with Carroll so what does he do? What is the point of Carr watching players if we have almost no transfer kitty now? If you aren’t going to speak to the press and you aren’t going to buy or sell players it seems to me we have a lot of extra bodies hanging about at the club. Mike may as well sack Joe now. What a shambles.

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  11. I have never known a football club that doesn’t want to win cup because of fear of qualifying for europe. This owner hasn’t got a clue about anything related to football. All the big promises when he bought the club like challenging for the premiership in five years and a 60,000 seater stadium. Now it’s qualifying for a top 10 finish in five years. With all Ashley’s sport contacts there must be more he could do sponsorship wise. Kinnear appointment is a waste of time and Ashley not spending a penny is moving the club backwards! Pardew not getting a set piece coach and how long have we needed one ? It does my head in

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  12. I had enough of this regrime and I don’t understand them. At least with Freddy and Hall there was some excitement and you could see they where trying but thing’s don’t always work out. The club could have still got out of debt eventually with them incharge. Ashley bores me

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  13. Where is this all going to end ? Ashley is slowly choking the life out of the protesters, water off a ducks back to him it is too. He has his two nodding puppies Kinnear and Pardew doing his bidding, with the remit to keep us in the EPL at all costs. The rest is all cosmetic.

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  14. Munich Mag I feel for those poor protester’s. Every newcastle fan wants to win something. Its been a long wait for them and I slowly see us creeping towards the championship. I haven’t got a clue, unless an owner with more money buys us.

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  15. Peter Lovehandles is having a nice game for Birmingham. Anyone remember him? We didn’t need him or Best of course as we had Xisco and Ranger. 🙂

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  16. Is anyone going to sponsor Ashley next year ? I think Joe and him our running the london marathon together. All charity money goes to buying a new striker.

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  17. Man City and Chelsea are both going to be real handfuls this week. Pardew has said we can win both games. What universe does he live in? I just can’t see it after the Sunderland game. We have too many holes to fill. The boat is sinking before we pull away from the dock.

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  18. G2 Lovenkrands he was a good freebie for us. Kinnear’s an improvement on Dennis Wise buts thats not worth boasting about

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  19. G2 I think if Dennis Wise came back and helped Kinnear find cheap football players from youtube that no ones ever heard of. Only at newcastle

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  20. Stem mate 😆 Yes it’s an amazing way to run a club. What’s next? Possibly ban the supporters from home games for not cheering the owner? I don’t think he’ll try that one on.

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  21. Birmingham playing with 10 men have just tied the score again 4-4. Amazing effort from them. What’s happened to Stoke’s defense?

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  22. KK 😆 So Anita has become your new Tevez.. 😆 😆 Anita has been one of our better palyers but to be honest that is no great feat! And replacing Remy with Anita 😆 😆 Just what we need a 4 -6 -0 set up 😆 😆 Hey, I guess that worked when you were playing football manager on your xbox 😛

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  23. Aussie-Like I’ve said, KK is either a WUM or just batshit crazy. I’ve supported Anita more than most but apparently he’s our best player as he was ajax’s…which is why he can’t even make the squad for the fairly average (in midfield) dutch national side. Or maybe Van Gaal just doesn’t know **** about football either 🙄

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  24. Newkie, yep I think he is both to be honest 😆 .. And Van Gaal knows **** all compared to our KK 😆

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  25. Anita just barely makes our sqaud these days. The problem is we have 4 defensive midfielders if you include Jonas like I do. All being played in the wrong position’s by Pardew. Made to look stupid and It’s a big problem in midfield as we desperately need wingers on the left and right but what do I know compared to a genius like Kinnear or Wise.

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  26. Unlikely we’ll emulate Spurs – they have a canny DoF in place but were lucky to have Bale in hot top form last couple of seasons which alone earned them 10 or more points a season, allowed them to get 80+ million for him and then reinvest in some top class players ( on top of the bundle they got for Modric etc) It’s all about reinvestment and although Ashley would say he has reinvested, he counts the players wages over the term of a contract so if we get 30 million for Cabaye, spend 12 million on 1 player and pay him 80k a week over 4 years we’re spent up and no further forward

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  27. Obviously the reality is that we get 3 players for about 3 – 4 million each and pay them around 40k a week
    The majority of the time, you pay for what you get and we have average players despite what their names look like on paper

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  28. Aussie-ayup 😐

    Stevep-exactly. We get some minor improvements but by and large they come too late and are usually in positions we are well stocked in. Anita as the only buy of a summer when we needed wingers, a different type of striker (or to just not sell Best) and a different option at CB.

    Our deals always smack of “right price at the time time” but never actually the right buy.

    The difference between us and Spurs is Levy. A brilliant negotiator who understands football as a business, and leaves the sports side largely up to those who know it. Ideally we would have him in and Wenger as a manager, they would suit Ashley down to the ground. Alas, he’d rather give a job to his crackpot mate because he doesn’t upset him or something.

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  29. @481 Precisely. We paid for Goof with what we sold Perch for, yet everyone assumes because he is French he is some gem we have picked up that we are now turning into ****? Now I think we got him for a good price, but people are complaining that he isn’t a winger and is in fact a prolific striker! His strike rate is 1/5 and he has played on wing at Bordeux ffs!

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  30. @AussieMagpieFan – 476

    Nice try at twisting my words 😆

    What Tevez said (he knows what Pardew is like better than both of us) rings true for a lot of our players:

    “I had to sacrifice myself for the team which I don’t think helped. I was playing in ways I did not understand well and I lost a lot from my own game.” – Ba/Cisse/Tevez/Sissoko

    “It didn’t fit where he put me, but I wanted to help.” – Ba/Cisse/Tevez/Sissoko

    “I don’t think he had a clear idea about my game or what to do. He was good football man but more suited to coaching English teams without foreign players with big reputations.” – Cisse/Tevez/Sissoko/Ben Arfa/Marveaux/Anita/Cabaye

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  31. @AussieMagpieFan – 476

    I also said that Anita would be in the team ahead of Remy.

    I did not say we would play 4-6-0!

    @NEWKIE – 477
    How is Anita supposed to make the dutch national side if he can’t start a game for us??

    Cabaye missed games for France because he wasn’t playing for us at the start of the season

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  32. KK-You seem to be saying he is our best player and was Ajax’s best player? How did Owen get picked for England when he never played for us?

    Why was he not playing regularly for the Netherlands when he was playing regularly for Ajax? He made over 40 appearances since joining us, I bet you he had more game time than some of their call ups last year, I can guarantee it.

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  33. Pardew says the cups are a priority then suas he’ll be resting 4/5 players! I’m not sure I understand…

    Pardew says the club are waiting for a reply from the local papers in respect of the letter the club sent them banning them. But the letter states “don’t reply as this stance is non negotiable”! Again, I’m not sure I understand…

    What is happening to our club?

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  34. Stu – The club seems to be in meltdown.

    The way to go about changing things in my opinion is to boot Pardew out asap. The fact is that so many of our players are regressing at an alarming rate, and that surely has to be down to the only common denominator – Pardew. As others have put it much more eloquently than me, we need a forward thinking, young manager to take us forward. De Boer/Pottechino/AVB/Laudrup types who have a different idea on how to get the best out of a squad which is packed with international class players. You dont play for your country through sheer luck, so why have Cabaye/Sissoko/MYM/HBA/Cisse all regressed so badly?

    For me I wouldn’t give him any more time. We need to stop the rot before it really kicks in. As I have said many times before the 5th place finish was a fluke and last season and this have showed what we really are at the moment. Pardew has done all he could, Roeder and Houghton had limits, Pardew’s found his.

    Id seriously like us to go and poach De Boer and the coaching staff from Ajax and watch us fly again

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  35. Nice idea Raffo. In fact several nice ideas. Personally I wouldn’t give Pardew any more time and never mind De Boer I’d take virtually any one else. The bloke’s destroying players confidence by the minute. Benny and Sissoko are the latest victims. God knows what he tells them but whatever it is it doesn’t work. Time to go!!!

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  36. It feels like the pressure is on already after 2 derby defeats on the trot. What will it be like after the next 3 games? Three tactically inept performances and defeats against Man City, Chelsea and Spurs with the odd heavy defeat and I think his time may be just about up. If I was him I would go all out for a result tonight and at least get that breathing space. Whatever he does in terms of resting players, I doubt it will get us a result against Chelsea anyway. I would say to the players if you want me to stay I need a performance tonight, maybe they don’t want him!

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  37. @NEWKIE – 486

    How can we agree on one thing but disagree on others by so much? 😆

    I think Anita is our best TEAM player. Ben Arfa is probably our best individual player.

    We should remember what Anita was like before he came to us. He graduated from the Ajax academy & broke through to their first team.

    The Ajax academy is so far ahead of our joke academy i can’t think of any words to describe the difference.

    Once he had settled into their first team, it wasn’t long before people started comparing him to Clarence Seedorf!

    Quite a few Ajax fans thought he was their key player especially as they went on an impressive winning run & won the title.

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  38. About Anita not playing regularly for Netherlands whilst at Ajax – he was very young but he did make a couple of appearances & was starting to break into the national team.

    Owen getting picked for England when he never played for us was silly.

    It’s one of the very reasons why the England team are so rubbish. To get picked for England you need a big reputation or be at a big club – it doesn’t matter that you’ve barely kicked a ball all season!

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  39. @NEWKIE

    I’m not sure if you’re playing Devil’s advocate?

    You agree Anita is ahead of Sissoko at the moment, Right?

    Is he ahead of Tiote?

    Is he ahead of Cabaye?

    Or should he stay on the bench?

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  40. The number of posts on here is telling quite a story. On the day of (what should be) a big match virtually no one can be bothered. The apathy that I’m starting to feel is spreading big time. I’m not going tonight and doubt I’ll even watch on TV. No one doubts we’ll get beaten and personally I think we’ll get trashed. In the past there was always the chance of a shock win or at least some memorable moments.
    Pardew will fiddle with the team and tactics. Rest a few ‘key’ players for Chelsea and they will thrash us too. Pardew, Ashley, JFK, the coaches and staff, Wonga and all the rest have to leave Newcastle altogether. I’ll definitely settle for Pardew first though. 🙁

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  41. Raffo @ 488 has the right idea

    Pardew is the second longest serving manager after Wenger.

    Straight away he has a head start on every other manager in the league. I would say that is enough time to make your mark on a team – other managers already have.

    What more can we expect from Pardew? Is he making some changes that will take time to come into effect?? No, all we can only really expect is more of the same. He’s taken us as for as he can.

    It’s not fair for him to have to deal with the pressure he is under especially when he doesn’t have the skills to change the situation.

    This is a guy that was sacked from the following (in order):

    West Ham – Premier League
    Charlton – Championship
    Southampton – League One

    He should never have been given the job & he shouldn’t still have the job.

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  42. its so utterly depressing that we have a manager who is completely out of his depth, completely lost the dressing (over 12 months ago) and is showing signs of getting worse and worse by the week, also has a terrifying ability of turning international players into conference standard and the worse thing is there is absolutely no way he’ll be sacked.

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  43. I would expect us to perform with a bit more fight & tenacity than we did at the start of the season.

    However, i honestly can’t see us getting a win. It’s odd but even lower league teams are more optimistic in matches like these.

    No doubt we will hear the usual can’t compete against the financial big boys…..despite most other clubs somehow managing to compete.

    I honestly think Mike Ashley needs some kind of football mentor (not Joe Kinnear).

    An up & coming, forward thinking modern manager is the only real change we need at the moment. It’s more important than any transfers in or out.

    It’s the most important thing we need.

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  44. Pardew is talking out of his **** again. Apparently the players are angry after the Sunderland defeat and will take this anger into the Man City game. 🙄 lol what a load of ****. Where was the anger on Sunday from a few of our lads.

    Paedew doesnt seem to motivate or play the right formation for more than 40mins of every game…

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  45. KK@492-Because I don’t believe in the “two camps” ideology, we all have our own opinions on every issue, at least that’s how it should be!

    I agree completely about academies, the same can be said of much of England but ours is a joke and has needed looking at for as long as I can remember. He did have a good run but there were others from I would much rather us have acquired given the positions we actually needed. Anita might have more potential but Siggthorson, De Jong, Eriksen, Vertonghen, Alderwiereld are all very good players, we would have struggled but it might have been possible to grab some of them after finishing 5th if we had shown them all some ambition. We needed something in all of those positions more than Anita’s. Time will tell if he ends up better than all of them.

    @493-There are younger players than him and there were both younger and older players with him getting picked on similar levels of appearances.

    I agree about Owen but there is no doubt-if you are good enough you will play regardless of form and it’s not just in England that this is/was the case. Almost all international managers bear that burden.

    @494-I am playing devils advocate, I would have him in for Sissoko in a heartbeat, but as you were saying how good he was yesterday I was wondering who you would drop, then you said Remy so I think Aussie assumed as I did that you would have no forwards with Cabaye, Tiote, Anita and Sissoko all in CM 😉

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  46. @Georgio-Aye, doubt i’ll even be watching it on TV either mate, cannae be bothered.

    Would like De Boer, it’ll never happen alas.

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  47. Newkie – sad state of affairs mate! KK has a point about Anita. He should be in the team. I’d swap him for Tiote any time.

    However the master disagrees and they’ll both play in tonights shambles along with Sammy, Marv, Cisse and probably Shola. Is shambles strong enough?

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  48. Georgio 😀 I know you clearly don’t rate Tiote one jot mate but to be fair there are toon fans that do, myself included, not just Pardew. The midfield is a problem that any manager worth their salt would struggle with (imo) because I don’t think either Cabaye or Sissoko can fill the role of the furthest forward in a front three-I think Anita did better there when he played there last season! Fairly obvious that I am not happy with Sissoko’s performances at all for this or most of last season, but there is some talent there.

    So there is a hell of a headache there. I’d like to see someone new brought in if they had some ideas on how to solve this but I can’t see anyone sane stepping into the job.

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  49. Cheers guys, nice to know I dont talk **** all the time!!

    I think De Boer may not be as far fetched as it seems at first glance, as many have said we could be the perfect ‘in’ for the EPL. If he is a success he may very well stay for 5 years and then move on to bigger and better things, and that wouldnt be the worst thing in the world.

    Too many people also harp on about stability etc. Need to keep Pardew to maintain stability. Well, what is the point in being stable but ****? Stability does not breed success. Success should breed stability. There is no point keeping stability when the product clearly isnt good enough.

    I agree too that I am apathetic towards the team now. I doubt I will watch tonight, and I live too far away to have a season ticket, but by fluke I am going this weekend as it is a birthday present. Happy days! At least I get to witness Chelski and their class football tear us a new one first hand!

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  50. I would love to see a very strong performance from the lads today. In fact I’m expecting it after the derby loss. Even if we lose we must see some fight and determination. You can’t go into games with your head down. It should be a learning experience for any youngsters who get to play as well.

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  51. I’d keep Tiote in and drop Sissoko for Anita – he’s been woeful since his first couple of games for toon, what happened to the player that skinned Ashley Cole like he wasn’t there…. put his feet up and said thats me done, thats what!

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  52. It’s called being Pardewed Evans mate. The process of destroying the confidence of quality players by playing them out of position, exposing them to substandard coaching, and in general depressing the hell out of them. I hope it’s not true but in many games some of our players look completely lost.

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  53. We can blame Pardew all we want and he is ***** and partly to blame but I get the feeling the players are getting off lightly here

    Wantaway Cabaye
    Look at me mum – HBA
    Slothful Sissoko
    Toothless tiger Tiote
    Sissy Cisse

    Just a few players you wont see in a champions league team near you anytime soon

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  54. Ouch SteveP mate. A proper manager would have them all roaring again (well maybe not Cisse). If we don’t see Remy or Cabaye in this one I suspect Pardew has given up on it no matter what he says.

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  55. Look at me mum HBA is very funny StevieP. He needs to get slim and go back to making some telling passes. All sides surround him and neutralize his dribbling now mate.

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  56. Cisse is NOT ****.
    He just needs to play as CF and have some proper service from the flanks.
    Pardew hasn’t got a clue. 😳
    I know, lets play cisse on the wing and he can pass to himself. Doh
    *****

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  57. He is not just out of form either.
    His confidence is shot, he doesn’t know what pardew wants of him.
    He is a lost soul out there. Starved of any quality of service, yet expected to score wonder goals out of nothing.
    Doh ❗ Doh ❗ Doh ❗
    TBH I wouldn’t blame him if he submitted a transfer request. He cant be happy in this set up surely.

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  58. You could be right BB mate but will Pardew ever get the most out of this group? We see flashes of brilliance followed by long periods of shear dross.

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  59. That sounds right as well BB. His lack of confidence is obvious. His touches when he came on against Sunderland showed it straight away. I just wonder what the real tone is in the dressing room? These next 3 games probably won’t help matters.

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  60. How many times did Cisse even play on the wing? **** me it’s not that much, and it was so long ago and he’s been just as **** before and after he was put there. The same people were annoyed when he was rightfully benched because Ba was actually capable of putting the ball in the fucking net with a half decent chance-something Cisse does sparingly. Look at his goals through his career, he scores from half chances, knock downs, long balls. He doesn’t play football on the deck or specialise in speeding past/in behind defenses.

    Freiburg are a far better footballing side without him and are getting goals out of a lot of players-pretty sure Munich can back me up on that.

    I don’t want to slag Cisse off but the excuses made for him are a joke, he needs to get back into gear quickly or he needs to be shipped off to the glue factory.

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  61. Ron Fraser, too, along with the rest of these typically, perennially “Christian” so-called “comforting friends-of-job” types,
    have it all JUST ABOUT dialed in, right down to ALMOST the very last “jot and tittle. I’ll tell you something about yourselves, about the REAL reason you find me “too good
    to be true,” at least as anything but a fool, deontologically speaking:  The real reason, from beneath all your snarlingly-hysterical cynicism against me, has rather to do with the fact that all YOU know how to do is SUBCONSCIOUSLY PROJECT your own PETTY SELFISHNESS onto me. Last Friday, 2 billion people witnessed Catherine Middleton glide down the aisle to music that prophesied of a time when Jesus Christ will return and then rule from Jerusalem.

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