5. the fair weathers who leave with 10 minutes to go

Surely the 'fair weathers' are the 10,000 who only turn up when we're in the PL or at Wembley. Those who pay their money to attend games are by definition supporters and can come and go as they please.

Bexley Dave

Can you hear the Brighton sing? I can't hear a ******* thing!

"The most arrogant, obnoxious bunch of deluded little sun tanned, loafer wearing mummy's boys I've ever had the misfortune of having to listen to" (Burnley forum)

We only have to win at least nine to be sure of staying up, easy for Sam eh!, not with the current squad thats available and especially, if Zaha goes to Africa nations, this is going to be very tough and close run thing right down to the wire!

A good point. And I think the buck stops with the manager for this one.

It's all very well changing the style of play, but you need the right personnel to do it.

We didn't have the right group of players. It seems Pardew overlooked the fact that the opposition will also have the ball.

Old, Ungifted and White

Yes has to be AP.
Especially as it was obvious we did not have enough quality players to do whatever his new style was meant to be , and also it was the wrong time , we did not finish last season playing well so we did not even have a strong basis to think we were good enough to try something else.
If he had just gone back to basics and and played solid we would probably be mid table , in a good position to sign new players and strengthen even more ready for the next season when a change of style could be possible.
His problem was his own ego thinking he could do it just by declaring it and not accepting he failed.

I'd halfway agree with this but I don't think we had ideas "above our station." To me, the concept of playing a little more expansively was sound. It meant we would not always be on the back foot, not relying on 30% possession and breakaway goals, etc. We purchased players we believed could help us build a team that possessed the ball and built from the back.

I think the problem was twofold: (1) we tried to adapt our style of play too quickly. It wasn't a gradual build, it was a huge gamble. I think these ideas needed more time to develop. (2) Pardew did not seem, in the end, to be capable of implementing these ideas.

Stealing their women and eating their food since 1987.