[Lloydy]

Is there any chance the Smethwick End could be as vocal in their support for Pardew as they were with their "we've got Tony Pulis" song? Barely heard a peep of support for our manager around the ground the last couple of games despite much improved performances.

[TheBrom]

Because of his level of match fitness perhaps? Based on what happened with Chadli, AP's thoughts have now turned to Phillips: "He is back training but I am a little bit nervous after Chadli as you would imagine. I thought he would play Boxing Day, all my staff think he is okay. I don’t want to go back on that decision but after Chadli we will have to look at it. There’s nothing mental to it."

Link: E & S

If he wasn't fit to start, he shouldn't be on the bench really in my opinion. Sadly the recurrence of his injury proves this

[Adder]

Pleased to hear the mention on MOTD that Pardew had them in the indoor school before kick off yesterday. Sluggish starts have been a too common feature of our games for too long....we can't afford any sluggish starts from here on in.

[hunsletbaggie]

 Even Swansea have had an impact now from a new manager.
 I know you have got to give him time but he was a poor choice from a p*ss poor chairman and board he just hasn't had the new manager impact that we needed.

[zippyandbungle]

Even Swansea have had an impact now from a new manager.
 I know you have got to give him time but he was a poor choice from a p*ss poor chairman and board he just hasn't had the new manager impact that we needed.

Do you only come on here when we are bottom?

[TheJacko2000]

To be fair Carvalhal wins within 48 hours. Pardew still waiting... 33 days tomorrow.

[DivinePast]

Even Swansea have had an impact now from a new manager.
 I know you have got to give him time but he was a poor choice from a p*ss poor chairman and board he just hasn't had the new manager impact that we needed.

Well Pardew only has 1 job which is to not get relegated. So hopefully he can clear that low threshold

[Adder]

Even Swansea have had an impact now from a new manager.
 I know you have got to give him time but he was a poor choice from a p*ss poor chairman and board he just hasn't had the new manager impact that we needed.

Even Swansea make our attacking resources look sparse. If everyone was fit it might have been different but take away 50% of the attacking players and it's not good

[Lloydy]

To be fair Carvalhal wins within 48 hours. Pardew still waiting... 33 days tomorrow.

Carvahal doesn’t have Rondon throwing away chances and points every Saturday.

[timdon]

Carvahal doesn’t have Rondon throwing away chances and points every Saturday.

Specifics are not the point though. As Jacko says, every other bottom half team who have appointed a new manager have got an improvement in results very quickly. We are still waiting. You can find excuses, but all the other teams around us didn't need excuses.

[webral]

Swansea had some luck with Watfords disallowed goal and their slightly offside equaliser. Shame we don't seem to have had much in the many tight games since August. Amazing how long since we got a penalty but that's because we rarely scored from open play or spent much time attacking under Pulis.
In hindsight we should have got rid of Pulis at the end of last season. Maybe we'd have got Hodgson back and be sitting mid table. The board have a lot to answer for, pretty poor decisions. Garlick, Hammond, Williams all appear useless based on their performance to date.
I don't think we have the attacking players to outscore many teams as Pardew hopes so unless the Evans money is spent wisely it's going to be difficult. There's a few poor teams around us so let's hope we start getting a bit more luck for the remainder of the season.

[Lloydy]

Specifics are not the point though. As Jacko says, every other bottom half team who have appointed a new manager have got an improvement in results very quickly. We are still waiting. You can find excuses, but all the other teams around us didn't need excuses.

It’s not excuses, it’s a fact that Pardew has inherited the worst set of strikers in the league. Performances have massively improved, the only reason we haven’t got results under AP is the abysmal squad he’s been left to work with. He doesn’t have the luxury of having Zaha or Rooney like Hodgson and Allardyce have inherited.

[costa blanca baggie]

Specifics are not the point though. As Jacko says, every other bottom half team who have appointed a new manager have got an improvement in results very quickly. We are still waiting. You can find excuses, but all the other teams around us didn't need excuses.

Why would a winning manager look for excuses? Anyway, there are excuses, and there are reasons. Our problems have been discussed, and are there for all to see. What I will point out though, is we’ve all seen these so called bounces in the past, and most are short lived. After all, it’s only a bounce. Gravity eventually sorts this phenomenon out. Maybe our upturn will arrive at a more appropriate time. I still believe in us anyway.

[timdon]

It’s not excuses, it’s a fact that Pardew has inherited the worst set of strikers in the league. Performances have massively improved, the only reason we haven’t got results under AP is the abysmal squad he’s been left to work with. He doesn’t have the luxury of having Zaha or Rooney like Hodgson and Allardyce have inherited.

Performances may have improved (ie in terms of attacking intent) but results have not. The squad is not "abysmal", it is full of international players, and on paper should be better than quite a few in this league. There may be another reason for the lack of "bounce", which people seem to be unwilling to consider as it is apparently unfair so soon, and that is that we have appointed a very poor manager who has a history of one failure after another. I genuinely don't see some people's optimism that Alan Pardew is our saviour - a poor, lazy, uninspiring and unambitious appointment in my view.

[telford baggie]

Performances may have improved (ie in terms of attacking intent) but results have not. The squad is not "abysmal", it is full of international players, and on paper should be better than quite a few in this league. There may be another reason for the lack of "bounce", which people seem to be unwilling to consider as it is apparently unfair so soon, and that is that we have appointed a very poor manager who has a history of one failure after another. I genuinely don't see some people's optimism that Alan Pardew is our saviour - a poor, lazy, uninspiring and unambitious appointment in my view.

nothing to do with the overpaid rubbish that puts the shirt on then players like kanu mclean livermore all huff no talent at all...rondon on probably 50k a week cant put his foot on the ball from 4yards out when its his job to many stealing a living and easy to blame pardew when 1 it isnt his team and 2 about time the players pulled there fi gers out of there backsides..they may realise when there wages get halved

[Scooby Doo]

It’s not excuses, it’s a fact that Pardew has inherited the worst set of strikers in the league. Performances have massively improved, the only reason we haven’t got results under AP is the abysmal squad he’s been left to work with. He doesn’t have the luxury of having Zaha or Rooney like Hodgson and Allardyce have inherited.

Pardew had Zaha in his side when he got sacked at Palace. Along with Benteke and Bolasie. Nigh on £100m in attacking talent right there at the time.

He's not going to get that sort of talent here. If he failed to get a side going with those you could actually argue he'll have no hope with whoever we bring in.

People are banging on about the confidence of the side. Does that not apply to players as individuals too. Rondon's getting chances, maybe bagging one could be what he needs on a personal level as much as a win is needed on a collective level.

[timdon]

nothing to do with the overpaid rubbish that puts the shirt on then players like kanu mclean livermore all huff no talent at all...rondon on probably 50k a week cant put his foot on the ball from 4yards out when its his job to many stealing a living and easy to blame pardew when 1 it isnt his team and 2 about time the players pulled there fi gers out of there backsides..they may realise when there wages get halved

Same group of players + some improvements, who finished 10th only last year, and should have finished 8th if not for some end of season complacency.
If your opinion is that the players need to get their fingers out of their backsides, is that not the job of the manager to ensure this happens?

[WorcsWBA]

Performances may have improved (ie in terms of attacking intent) but results have not. The squad is not "abysmal", it is full of international players, and on paper should be better than quite a few in this league. There may be another reason for the lack of "bounce", which people seem to be unwilling to consider as it is apparently unfair so soon, and that is that we have appointed a very poor manager who has a history of one failure after another. I genuinely don't see some people's optimism that Alan Pardew is our saviour - a poor, lazy, uninspiring and unambitious appointment in my view.

AP's overall career record is better than Pulis's, whilst also being achieved in a way that's infinitely more entertaining to watch. Did AP fail at Reading or Southampton? He also got Newcastle into Europe, but perhaps that also rates as a failure in your book? Even at Palace, which I imagine you regard as being dismal failure, he only lost 4 more matches than he won.

New managers don't often come into a situation where a side has won only twice in 20-odd games as the previous incumbent is usually jettisoned before things get that bad. AP's appointment also coincided with our most influential creative midfielders being injured at the same time.

No-one can reasonably dispute that our perfomances have been improving overall so, whilst we're in a bad position, I think AP deserves to be cut some slack and I believe that things will come good with him at the helm. He's come good at almost every club he's been at, his problem has been maintaining that, but I'm equally sure he's acutely aware of that and will have been pondering how to avoid that from happening in the future,

[seteefeet]

He needed to hit the ground running but didn't happen. Think improved performance is all we can take for now, can't see results changing dramatically.
Still the correct decision to fire Pulis, but may not know if Pardew was the right replacement until we see how he handles the Championship.

[darbolina]

The squad Pulis assembled is obviously not good enough to stay up as results in the calendar year 2017 proved . Unless Pardew can adress this quickly in January, we’re down. Pardew needs time just as most of us gave Pulis plenty of time to sign ‘his’ players and implement his ideas (we now know where that led us now of course).  The point is, Football is mostly about players and coaches can only do so much on the training pitch, especially with a poor, imbalanced squad and a set of characters who seem to lack the fight to drag themselves up the league one way or another in important games (Huddersfield, Stoke and Swansea spring to mind).

Sometimes, pooh happens and in spite of everyone’s best intentions, we’ve moved backwards as a club quite quickly just as others have improved , that’s life.

I’d rather give Pardew a chance to build a team considering it’s the only chance we have today and he has championship experience.

We badly need a lift , I know that much!

[alex1]

It's a bit of an exaggeration to claim Carvalhal winning in one game is significant in a comparison with Pardew. I think Swansea had their fair share of luck in winning at Watford.
I think Pardew has got the team playing decent attacking football again, creating , lots of goal chances. You have to remember that they had been taught to play only one way for 3 years. There was no Plan B under Pulis. The big problem Pardew has inherited is a very average set of strikers unable to do their most important task, i.e. sticking the ball in the back of the net. The team has been far too reliant on set pieces, and players like Rondon (in particular) had the excuse that their service was almost non-existant, and then hide behind the odd 1-0 victory through goals from the likes of McCauley and Dawson. However, Pardew is now aware of the problem, so he will need to assess carefully if the current group's finishing can improve or otherwise go out and buy a new striker, which is my view what needs to happen. 

[adamw1109]

If we had a striker who knew where the net was, we would all be saying how great Pardew has done.... but unfortunately we have a very out of form Rondon who can't even put sitters away atm and our better players can't seem to stay injury free and

[barnestormer]

If we had a striker who knew where the net was, we would all be saying how great Pardew has done.... but unfortunately we have a very out of form Rondon who can't even put sitters away atm and our better players can't seem to stay injury free and

When Rondons in form he's still very poor and that's the problem,not good enough

[caravanc58]

The club has massively neglected to invest in the striker department for too long.
Just looked at some stats for our last 100 league games and its quite frankly shocking.
In 75 of our last 100 league games we've failed to score more than a single goal.
In 38 games we failed to score.
This goes back to the tail end of the 2014/15 season upto our last match.
Bringing in Rodriguez and HRK was never going to solve the problem.

[timdon]

When Rondons in form he's still very poor and that's the problem,not good enough

This and other comments seem like scapegoating to me. No team is so reliant on one player that they find themselves bottom of the league when his form dips. Yes, we have had a few injuries as well but no more than anyone else. Pardew has been here over a month and seems to have no idea who his best team is yet, which doesn't inspire me with confidence frankly. Yacob comes in, plays very well, then gets dropped. Field comes in, plays very well, then gets dropped. Livermore comes in, plays very poorly, then gets picked game after game.
The art of good management is getting the best out of what you have got. Hodgson inherited a club that had lost about 7 or 8 games consecutively and turned it around, that is what a good manager can do over a short period of time, with limited resources and a group of players whose confidence is shot to pieces. Alan Pardew, no such ability I'm afraid.