Siem De Jong possibly out until after Christmas

[Jaiston]

Yeah. expecting "bit of magic" from a player not fully fit is quality management, Mourinho would be proud.

Mourinho believes in magic.

http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/319119.html

He also believes and has the ability to organise a defence properly.

[Smudger]

I think we might have been sold a dud. It seems too cheap to get a Champions League standard player and the Ajax captain at that for a little as £6m. Giving he barley played because of injury last season (16 games I think) and he missed the world cup through injury perhaps he's going to be another Michael Owen type player for us in that he's injury prone.

Nope.

[tweet][/tweet]

[overseasTOON]

I think we might have been sold a dud. It seems too cheap to get a Champions League standard player and the Ajax captain at that for a little as £6m. Giving he barley played because of injury last season (16 games I think) and he missed the world cup through injury perhaps he's going to be another Michael Owen type player for us in that he's injury prone.

Nope.

[tweet][/tweet]

I had a collapsed lung once yet I only missed three days of work.

[Goat]

Pardew knew how fit De Jong was, none of us knew. What we wanted is irrelevant.

We have a history of bringing players back too early, to try save pardew..surely this is no different.

Then sack the medical team for incompetence for giving permission to players to play when not fully fit. No manager will play a player who's been medically ruled out and to suggest that the clubs medical team do this to save Pardew is just ****ing stupid.

Up until only a few weeks ago managers were allowed to keep players on the pitch even when they had a head concussion which could be lethal. It's only lately that doctors were introduced to make the call.

Injuries aren't black and white and medical teams don't have the final say. There's not magic machine which tells doctors exactly when an injury will be healed. A players injury can be healed enough for him to play football but still weak where it would benefit from a few more weeks of healing. That's why managers sometimes choose to ease people in slowly, but Pardew chose not to.

There's no guarantee that Pards choosing him whilst he wasn't fully match fit is a cause, but I still think it was a stupid idea regardless.

[MitroLand]

Gutting, we really needed him to help us kick start our season really. I imagine we'll aim to play something like.

Krul
Janmaat Willo Colo Haidara
Tiote Colback
Sissoko Cabella Aarons
Riviere

That's what we probably should do but Pardew will play Gouffran over Aarons.

[overseasTOON]

Then sack the medical team for incompetence for giving permission to players to play when not fully fit. No manager will play a player who's been medically ruled out and to suggest that the clubs medical team do this to save Pardew is just ****ing stupid.

Up until only a few weeks ago managers were allowed to keep players on the pitch even when they had a head concussion which could be lethal. It's only lately that doctors were introduced to make the call.

Injuries aren't black and white and medical teams don't have the final say. There's not magic machine which tells doctors exactly when an injury will be healed. A players injury can be healed enough for him to play football but still weak where it would benefit from a few more weeks of healing. That's why managers sometimes choose to ease people in slowly, but Pardew chose not to.

There's no guarantee that Pards choosing him whilst he wasn't fully match fit is a cause, but I still think it was a stupid idea regardless.

Perhaps its just bad luck and could have happened to any player or manager.

No. Can't be. That's just f**king stupid because Pardew isn't to blame

[Lidl]

For all that people are slating Pardew for everything, if we only had the choice between changing him or changing the backroom staff then I'd probably go with backroom. We have a ridiculous amount of injuries which suggests something's wrong with the medical team, and I'd say a lot of the problems with the squad come from the same shitey coaches who seemingly have nothing new to offer the players.

Of course Pardew is terrible at most things but there are a lot of other people to blame (including the players) for why we're so s***.

[Colly]

Then sack the medical team for incompetence for giving permission to players to play when not fully fit. No manager will play a player who's been medically ruled out and to suggest that the clubs medical team do this to save Pardew is just ****ing stupid.

Up until only a few weeks ago managers were allowed to keep players on the pitch even when they had a head concussion which could be lethal. It's only lately that doctors were introduced to make the call.

That's not true at all. If you look at the Lloris incident that prompted the minor rule changes the decision was made by the club doctor that he was fit to continue, then he was assessed by the referee. If either of them had felt he couldn't continue AVB wouldn't have had any say whatsoever.

[PFT]

I don't want Aarons being started just yet, don't want to rush him. He's shown quality but he needs to eased in slowly. Rush him and he flops a few times and we could ruin him.

[tomtom94]

I don't want Aarons being started just yet, don't want to rush him. He's shown quality but he needs to eased in slowly. Rush him and he flops a few times and Pardew would ruin him.

Fixed that for you

[krully]

Now all we need is for a CB to inevitably get an injury

steve and willo at the back

[Remember Colo]

I do blame Pardew for forcing out Ben Arfa (knowing he wasn't going to be replaced) and reducing the amount of depth we have in attacking positions - which will be shown up especially now that De Jong is out for an extended period.

[Remember Colo]

I think we might have been sold a dud. It seems too cheap to get a Champions League standard player and the Ajax captain at that for a little as £6m. Giving he barley played because of injury last season (16 games I think) and he missed the world cup through injury perhaps he's going to be another Michael Owen type player for us in that he's injury prone.

Nope.

[tweet][/tweet]

Not to mention that he missed the world cup because he wasn't match fit or in form from the aforementioned injury. Complete redundancy. They weren't two separate injuries - and even if they were, as you pointed out, they're isolated injuries that don't reflect his career fitness.

[beatski]

Pardew

[Bik]

He played someone who he knew wasn't fully fit and clearly wasn't performing anywhere near his best. Ben Arfa could and should have been playing.

This is one of the best statements I've ever seen.

You need to read more.

[Captain Obvious]

He'll be like a new signing in January

[Donkey Toon]

This reaction to Pardew on here is why I want him gone more than any other reason. Fans are so negative about him that they are falling over themselves to find negatives to blame him with, even if it doesn't make any sense. And I can't see any way back from this.

Seriously though - blame the manager because a player gets injured?

[LaFraise92]

He shouldn't have played him in the Palace game like unless he was certain that he was good to go. Far better to ease someone in via reserve games against lower opposition.

[Donkey Toon]

You can never be certain that a player won't get injured. A player can go into a game without a known injury scare and get injured. Any player coming back from injury or carrying a minor knock can also get injured first game back - this is something that is known to anybody that plays football.

To say that any one person should know whether he is fit or not is just not realistic or fair. And in my opinion the person best able to know is the player himself so if anybody is to blame it would be him. Doctors, managers and coaches are all guessing to some extent, only the player knows how truly fit he is. If he says he is ok to go a manager is not going to second guess him.

As we can only guess at the circumstances on this occasion, to automatically assign blame to Pardew without knowing the ins and outs is totally unfair and a symptom of the general negativity attached to the manager. If we were winning games the manager wouldn't be catching the blame for this, it would just be one of those things.

[sholas fan club]

I think whether Pardew is to blame or not is besides the issue. Just for the record I'll state I want him out but I think the medical staff are more culpable on this than him. When other teams can manage to prevent soft tissue injuries pretty much entirely and we can't manage him I cannot fathom.

De Jong was clearly bought to provide goals from midfield which we sorely lacked in the second half of last season. Him being missing for so long and having a strikeforce without a Premier League goal to their name is potentially terrifying.

4 of the 5 players who had the lowest minute to goal ratio for their presence on the pitch last season are no longer with us (Cabaye, Remy, Shola and Hatem) so we are wholly reliant on a couple of the new guys kicking on early which becomes a lot harder with De Jong out. This is a injury we could ill-afford.