As I said yesterday, I am a huge fan of Pardew and would have him back at Upton Park at the drop of...well at the drop of a WAG's knickers...but is he the right man for Newcastle? If the Toon Army don't want him, then definitely not!
Pardew is thick skinned and will tough it out, as he showed during a difficult first season at Upton Park, but you have to wonder if the players will have the same steel and fibre if things start to go wrong. Poor Pards is possibly walking in to a nightmare scenario. The script could read: appointed on Thursday, lose heavily to a resurgent Liverpool at the weekend, and demonstrations against the Board after the game because of his appointment.
One thing is for sure, the fans will be quick to jump on anything that supports their belief that the sacking of Hughton was wrong. It would have been bad enough if a truly experienced manager, such as O'Neill, had been appointed to replace him, but how, exactly does Pardew meet the "experienced" criteria? He has less than two full season's experience in the Prem and in those two seasons, he contrived to get himself sacked from West Ham and take Charlton down!
In fact, if you look at his CV and ignore that Cup Final, it doesn't make impressive reading. He was doing well at Reading, which is why we appointed him, but Reading did better under Coppell after Pardew left. He struggled in his first season at West Ham, only secured promotion through the play offs in his second, and had a dream third season, which sadly proved more of a wet dream if we believe the rumours. He couldn't manage the egos of the players once they realised they could play a bit and made a complete hash of bedding down Tevez and Mascherano. The Argies have a mate in the Newcastle dressing room and will hardly supply a ringing endorsement of the man who treated them like a dose of syphilis when they arrived in the Boleyn.
Pards was an unmitigated disaster at Charlton and his record at Southampton was unconvincing too. We still don't know why he was shown the door by the Saints but there are suggestions that Pards was once again a sinner. If so, the Newcastle players are going to have to watch their wives as if JT had just joined from Chelsea!
Hughton was a popular guy amongst the players and the fans and Newcastle have overachieved so far this season. The club needed a big name to justify his sacking, not a Pardew. I would welcome Pards back to the Boleyn but that's because we are the right type of club for Mr Armani. The Geordies will be saying, "Alan who?" and remember the last former West Ham manager they appointed. Glenn Roeder at least had the advantage of being a former player but Pardew is an out and out outsider, a flash Harry southerner with no real credentials.
This could well end in tears!
9 comments:
Guaranteed. Nice piece.
Partpoo Out!!
ASHLEY OUT!!
GET OUT OF OUR CLUB!!!
sorry for shouting ... had to be done :-)
Can we at least get Hughton in now then??
Extraordinary decision. Either very brave or very foolish. One thing's for sure, Mr Ashley clearly doesn't give a toss what the fans think of him. That either makes him devoid of emotional intelligence or incredibly single minded when making a business decision. He didn't get rich by accident that's a given. On the other hand, this is the man who feared for the safety of himself and his family because of the collective Toon disaffectation with his leadership style and stayed away from the ground for a proptracted spell.
It's a difficult one. Ashley must have seen stuff he just doesn't fancy - he surely would settle for an end of season finish where they are now but genuinely doesn't believe Hughton can deliver that. Decisive or rash? Shepherd backs him which is odd for a former Chairman - they usually enjoy sticking the boot in!
Oddly enough, I find myself wishing Alan and the Toon well. Proper football club, proper supporters. Proper manager? Hmmn. Jury's out.
Pardew had a good first season back in the PL .He was extremely lucky as he had few injury's.A lot of the teams better displays we're largely down to Benayoun providing the creativity in the team.When Benayoun was off form ,their was no plan B.His teams rely on pace and you may catch teams out once but the second time round they're ready for you,as we found out to our cost in our second season back in the PL.Of far more interest to me is the Scott Parker situation in next months transfer window.I personally think Parker is a GOOD player but certainly not irreplaceable.HOWEVER should he be sold ,i believe he will ,if true to form during the last couple of days of the transfer window thus enabling G&S to say we never had 'time' to bring someone in &pocket the cash.In your opinion Fanno do you think that would be a indication that G&S think we're as good as down ?.If we DO go down i exspect the self styled 'Messaihs' to sell what they can to recoup what they can get,take us into administration &be off !
Different topic but you'll love this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3evE7s2LOu8
John V P
Erm, so why do want back at West Ham then?
Fareham, I know you are a prophet of doom in the event of relegation, but I don't think the situation would be as bad as you think. I've done an article on this already. Our main probllem at present is the wage bill, and that will be eased considerably next season anyway. Dyer goes, Upson goes, Parker goes, Behrami goes, Green probably goes, Cole goes. Of that lot, we would probably only miss Parker and he is not irreplacable given we have Noble, Collison, Hizlespurger and Spector. Add together their wages and it comes to approximately £300k per week, or £15,600,000 a year. Fetch in a total of £28m in transfer fees (Upson 3, Cole 8, Parker 8, Green 3, Behrami 6) and you have covered the Prem TV revenue at a stroke. There is then the parachute payment for 3 years. How much will gate receipts drop? Say admission prices are reduced to £25 and we lose an average of 5000 per game (and prices will not go that low!) and we lose about £19,000,000 but with an extra 4 home games with a gate of 28,000 we recoup £2,800,000 of that anyway. So, going down costs us a maxiumum of £16m. The amount the debt has been reduced by so far!
Remember too that the players willl all suffer wage reductions if we go down of between 15 and 20%. Our wage bill was over £50m last season. Save 15% of that and you have saved another £7.5m. Suddenly, the cost of dropping is down to £8.5m. Is that a disaster? It certainly would not force administration. The pressure would be on to get back inside 2 years but I would fancy us to do that anyway. Collison, Noble, Stanislas, Jacobsen, Stech, Piquionne, Obinna, McCarthy, Da Costa, Tomkins, Ilunga, Reid, Sears, Hines, Barrera, Hizlespurger, Spector and Faubert, we would have the basis of a squad fit to take the Championship by storm. Add in a couple of quality loan signings and two or three gnarled pros, and I would back us to bounce back. In fact, it might be good for the development of the youngsters!
The critical thing is that we don't have a golden generation embedded in the team as we had last time. The kids are good, but not great, so we should be able to keep hold of them.
Stay calm mate, don't strain that ticker!
1405, because I think he is a good fit for West Ham. My wife looks good in stockings, I don't. Sometimes what suits one, doesn't suit another. Follow?
whooosh that went right my head.... read the blog entry again and perhaps you'll see why I'm confused.
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