Your actually idiotic and I'm done replying to you. Let's wait and see how far the guy who said the NFL is "almost like a foreign sport" takes us and then we can judge who "knows little about the sport".

Imbecile

Drifting back to topic, I spent a good while in a Barcelona bar last night chatting to some locals (the red n blue shirt caught their attention).

They were impressed with the transition we're trying to make & seem to like Palace & Pardew because of what the club are trying to do. We spoke for ages about what made the old FCB the great team it now is and it was quite interesting to hear their thoughts.

Under Cruyff they were an entertaining side with high skill levels which is what the fans and the board wanted - if they were going to come second to 'el meringues' then they wanted to look good doing it. This style started to disappear under a succession of managers so the ended up with LVG in the hope that the Dutch brand of 'total football' would follow. It didn't but they did win a few things.

Fast forward & they appointed Rijkaard which surprised a few - apparently, whilst inexperienced, he was the stand out candidate who bought into how the club wanted to play and be perceived. Yes, the changes were both painful at times and frustrating but the end result ain't bad.

Now we weren't comparing Palace to FCB but I got their drift - if a club wants to have its own identity and way of doing things then sometimes it doesn't mean you have the best manager, players, facilities etc but you take what fits best & mould it into the best shape you can (within your financial constraints). They see us as starting that process and, looking at where we've come from under SP & 2010, perhaps they have a point. We're not going to do a Leicester any time soon (nobody is) & we're not Champions League material but IF we can cement our place in the best (and richest) league in the world then we should be happy, surely?

Much as I absolutely despise the bloke, Pulis was the master of managing expectations. Constantly talking the club down, playing negative football, endlessly saying the squad was "limited in certain areas but doing their best". He does it at every club.

Pardew's approach is different, he aims high and if we get mid table fine. The optimism from Pardew is why we sign players like Cabaye and Benteke, and Pulis signed hard working codgers like Hal Robson-Kanu. Players want to come and play for us.

The thing is, the outcome is much the same. They're both mid-table Prem managers. Neither of them are very likely to get you relegated and neither are going to win you the league. I'd much rather an optimistic Pards always looking to improve the club and always looking to take 3 points over that speccy Welsh cnt.

He's given us stable Premier League football, some fantastically unexpected victories (we've come from 2-0 down away from home TWICE since he's been here). He's give us a cup final. He's attracted international quality players, the likes of Cabaye, Mandanda, Benteke, Remy. He's one of our own.

What, honestly, is the problem?

According to that logic we should lose to all the teams who finished above us last season and beat all those who finished below. Yeah, like that will happen.

LC's squad last season cost about £54m to assemble. We had players who cost us over £80m in the XI on Saturday. Either they are better at signing players than we are or their manager is better.

Of course we're allowed to criticise Pardew, we're fans of the club and want it to succeed and as always poor performances ultimately are the responsibility of the manager. The stats for 2016 speak for themselves. A poor start to this season, a decent little run and then another blip. He bought well but the team is inconsistent or gets outplayed because Pardew got his tactics wrong and didn't have a plan B. He also sold or loaned out nearly all our young players who should have been at least in the squad.

All that said it's too early to give him the boot but 3 or 4 more games like the last 2 and I will have lost my belief that he's the man for the job. I would love to know who is coaching the defence. Ward was Pulis's go to man - filled in at left back or midfield and did a great job - where did that top defender go? We need a top number 10 Punch isn't consistent enough - goes from good to poor to often. All of this is down to the manager - he may have got us to a cup final but our league form overall has been awful.