The teams below us play each other over the next few weeks and then our game against Norwich is huge.

I actually didn't think we were too bad today, but again had barely any threat at goal. We put in some decent crosses but never had people running on to them.

Leicester have so much movement in attack, when one gets the ball, they have others flying around him. Really showed up how much we lack it.

1st half the crosses were shite... adebayor had nothing to go for, so he takes ade off at half-time and sends on sako... suddenly the crosses are really good, but wait... there's now no striker on the pitch in the 18 yard box for those crosses... you couldn't make it up...

To reaffirm your point until Gayle came on, Mile was that striker...

^ yeah, exactly... can't for the life of me fathom out what he was thinking at half time taking ade off if he was sticking sako on... should have taken ledley off who was as useful as a statue most of the match...

...agree about the earlier comment on souare too... geezer just has no clue on how to defend.

Newcastle & Sunderland cancel each other out. the only good news for us this weekend.
keeps us 7 points ahead of the drop zone with a much better goal difference.

Still gives us that bit of breathing space.

We have to start grinding out some results though, none of this "going toe-to-toe" that Pardew goes on about. Seeing as we are incapable of winning, 4 or 5 draws in the run-in should be enough.

agree about the draws. a point at West Ham would be a good result ahead of what is now a huge clash against Norwich.

Another depressing stat , only club in all divisions without a league win this year

Can anyone remember the last time we scored a goal in the first half ?

also we have the worst record in any of the 5 major top flight leagues in Europe in 2016.

in our 13 game run without a win we have only scored 3 first half goals. v Spurs (an OG), v Bournemouth, and v Watford. we lost all 3 matches.

Forgotten about those , they all seem to blur into one ugly mess . What about the last first half goal & we didn't lose ?

19.5 hours + we have played without without anything to show for it

you have to go back to our last league win for that when we won at Stoke on Dec 19. Wickham scored a penalty in 1st half injury time.

A couple of other depressing stats. We are two games away from equalling our longest Premier League run without a win of 15.

And seven games away from equalling our club record of consecutive league games without a win of 20, set back in 1962.

I can definitely see us beating the 15 one.

Looking bleakly back to this day last year when there was so much optimism.
And we made the top ten?
What has gone wrong?

For me the hierarchy cocked everything up in January. Great first half of the season and Parish boasting about how we can push for Europe, how he and his cohorts wouldn't make the same mistakes as previous owners, how they would push on and improve from last seasons position. We could all see in December that to do that we would need strengthening in the transfer window and they did nothing. Ok, Adebayor came in but only because Parish managed to secure a certain kind of deal for him. Other than that the window was pathetic and a gigantic missed opportunity and now we're all seeing the result of that.

Don't get me wrong, Pardew cannot escape any blame here, he too has messed up, and so have the coaches who to me are proving more and more inept as the weeks go by. You really do have to ask just what the hell they do in training all week?

If we do stay up then this summer must see a complete overhaul of the squad. If nothing is done then we'd just be postponing relegation for a year.

And just for the record, as much as I would dearly love us to win the FA Cup, it would mean nothing to me if we went down.

parish got complacent... he spouted all that nonsense before xmas because he was more interested in getting investment for the stadium than investment for the squad... it was crying out for reinforcements in january... pardew's at fault too for not pushing & pushing for more backing and accepting that our squad was good enough.

...have you all noticed that this run started from the moment harris & blitzer came aboard? ... i bet they wish they had a get out clause now.

Just in case you were not aware - FA Cup Semi Final tickets go on sale from Thursday at 9am via SEE tickets online using the loyalty point scheme. We have been allocated seats in the East half of the stadium.

The selling phases will be as follows: (All phases subject to availability)

Phase 1
From Thursday 24th March at 09:00
Season Ticket Holders & Paid Members with 2500+ points - 1 ticket per client reference

Phase 2
From Monday 28th March at 09:00
Season Ticket Holders & Paid Members with 1250+ points - 1 ticket per client reference

Phase 3
From Thursday 31st March at 09:00
Season Ticket Holders & Paid Members with 500+ points - 1 ticket per client reference

Phase 4
From Monday 4th April at 09:00
Season Ticket Holders & Paid Members registered by 21st March, no loyalty points required - 1 ticket per client reference

Phase 5 (SUBJECT TO ANY TICKETS REMAINING)
From Thursday 7th April at 09:00
Exclusive for new paid members that have purchased their membership between Monday 21st March 17:00 and Tuesday 5th April 17:00, - 1 ticket per client reference


The following ticket pricing categories will apply:
Cat 1 £60
Cat 2 £50
Cat 3 £40
Cat 4 £30

Concessions are £10 off the full price all over the stadium.
Seniors (aged 65 and over), 18-21 Year olds, juniors (Under 18), and Full time Students.

Booking fees of £2.50 per ticket plus a postage fee of either £2 (first class) or £6.50 (registered) will be charged.


Good luck all!

gonna be frantic isn't it? ... i'm phase 1 and will probably be going for a cat 2 ticket, cat 3 if i have to...

James McArthur could be back in 3 weeks.

Link.

Hopefully he's back playing in time for the semi.

Speaking of which, it's ticket day. It was actually quite simple, but took a bit of refreshing not to end up with front rows.

Everton game has been rearranged for 13th April.

That has become one very busy month for us now.

2 - West Ham (A)
9 - Norwich (H)
13 - Everton (H)
17 - Arsenal (A)
20 - Man Utd (A)
24 - Watford (FA Cup)
30 - Newcastle (A)

back to League action this weekend. it's been nice not to think about it for the past fortnight.

there's injury doubts over Jedinak, Cabaye and Adebayor. Puncheon should be back though.

Despite our good recent record at the Boleyn I'm not holding out much hope for tomorrow - I would take a draw right now.

today's team:

Hennessey; Ward, Dann, Delaney, Souare; Zaha, Puncheon, Jedinak, Ledley, Sako; Bolasie.

Subs: McCarthy, Marriapa, Kelly, Mutch, Lee, Gayle, Campbell.


no recognised striker starting again? Everytime we do that it fails miserably.

Hope they can prove me wrong because that line-up gives me absolutely no confidence whatsoever.