da pinup bet： Despite being quite clearly one of the least talented managers in the English top flight, Alan Pardew has somehow sneaked through the back door to become the Premier League’s second longest serving manager, following Stoke’s dismissal of Tony Pulis just over a week ago.
da winzada777： Rather than being any testament to Alan Pardew’s abilities, the interesting feat is more telling of the current culture of ‘hire and fire’ in the English game, with the level of expectation in terms of results and rapid growth clearly too high at the majority of Premier League clubs.
The irony is that most of the managerial casualties this season have done far less wrong than the current Newcastle boss. Under Pardew’s leadership, the Magpies have transformed from the Premier League’s overachievers to the division’s biggest underachievers in the space of a single calendar year, recording 19 losses this season, and finishing the campaign with embarrasing home defeats at the hands of Sunderland and Liverpool – the latter fixture, with a score line of 6-0, was the Tyneside club’s worst result at St. James’s Park since 1925.
Yet it appears at least for now, that Alan Pardew’s job remains intact, in no small part due to the fact the Magpies finished the 2011/2012 season in fifth place with the former West Ham and Charlton manager at the helm.
It has been argued that 51 year old deserves another year for his past escapades, and that furthermore, amid the managerial merry-go-round currently underway and set to continue over the course of the summer, Newcastle will reap the benefits of consistency and stability from one campaign to the other next season.
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But is it actually worth keeping an underperforming manager on just for the sake of longevity? Rather than opting to avoid the managerial whirlwind currently taking place in the Premier League, should Mike Ashley be using the opportunity for change to find his club a better, more qualified and more consistent head coach?
Although much has been made already this season about Pardew’s shortcomings, it is worth once again going over the arguments to dethrone the current Magpies boss. Under his leadership, Newcastle finished up in 16th place in the Premier League, an 11 place decline from the season previous, spending the majority of their campaign looking over their shoulders at the dim prospect of relegation, only to be saved by Wigan’s defeat to the hands of Arsenal during their penultimate fixture of the footballing year.
Whilst some have pointed to the overwhelming influx of French players, or Newcastle’s inability to battle on two fronts whilst involved in the Europa League as key reasons behind the first team’s sudden demise, I point the finger at Pardew. The gaffer has done little to help the situation; with constant use of simple and ineffective 4-5-1 and 4-3-3 formations, bizarre substitutions and a woeful long-ball style of play whose success almost entirely depends on the form of Papiss Cisse on any particular match day.
Furthermore, if set pieces are a litmus test of a manger’s ability to organise, drill and train his team, Pardew has come up alarming short – a Magpies fan informed me earlier in the season that under the former Southampton gaffer, Newcastle have found the net just once from 234 attempted corners, despite the cultured boot of Yohan Cabaye, whilst at the over end, the Toon first team have been conceding regularly from dead ball situations, including three times in a single game against Manchester United earlier in the season.
For any other manager, the 3-0 defeat alone at the hands of the Premier League Champions would have been a warning sign that something is a-miss. But rather than changing his approach in any way, shape or form, Pardew has spent the year making excuses. At times he has blamed a ‘negative reaction from the crowd’, ‘decisions seem to go against us’ and ‘a lack of experience’ of certain players. But the excuse I find most appauling, dished out often during one of the Englishman’s routinely nonsense press conferences that more closely resemble a political sound-bite campaign in the style of Tony Blair rather than a post-match interview, is Pardew’s favourite line; ‘We were just tired’.
Newcastle may have undergone an injury crises of epic proportions this season, with Cabaye, Coloccini, Steven Taylor, Ryan Taylor, Hatem Ben Arfa, Tim Krul and Dan Gosling among others having extended periods on the sidelines, yet I do not believe in the modern game, with fitness and stamina being a prerequisite for any footballer, that fatigue is an acceptable reason for failure. Chelsea’s squad members have averaged around 50 games this season, plying their trade in six different competitions domestically and on the continent, but it has not stopped the Blues qualifying for the Champions League and claiming their first Europa League title.
Perhaps Pardew could have done more to stop the apparent problem with the squad’s fitness had he petitioned Mike Ashley for more summer signings than the single purchase of Vernun Anita. Yet, that is another management skills set where the Newcastle coach is equally lacking, with his input on transfers clearly being non-existent following the continual influx of French players that Pardew has most likely never heard of, and all of the club’s recruitment sourced with Chief Scout Graham Carr.
He’s not a tactician, he’s not a transfer market wheeler dealer and he’s certainly not the best at handling the media – what does Pardew actually contribute at St. James’s Park? By my estimates, not a lot, and there a are a number of managers with proven Premier League track records that could do a better job, and even some in the Championship that show more promise in terms of ability in comparison to Pardew.
For example, Tony Pulis may be mocked and loathed for his boring style of play, but it is overall not too dissimilar from the breed of football we’ve seen from Newcastle this season, and his history as a manager is far more consistent than Pardew’s. The former Stoke boss has never been relegated throughout his career, in sharp contrast to Pardew’s feat of already failing to beat the drop twice from the English top flight, and there is no doubt that he is tactically far more astute than the current Newcastle boss.
Similarly, with news that Ralf Rangnick could now be leading the charge for the Everton post, Roberto Martinez is a manager well acquainted with the English game, known for implementing a more attractive style of play and capable of producing results despite limited resources and funding, that could now be available for hire over the summer, whilst FC Porto’s Vito Pereira is also now out of contract and could be tempted to move to the Premier League, and Neil Lennon has proved his capabilities with Celtic this season in the Champions League.
Pulis, Matinez, Pereira and Lennon, not to mention Malky Mackay, Gus Poyet and Roberto Di Matteo, are all the calibre of manager Newcastle should be able to attract, with their continually growing corporate enterprises, strong squad and ferociously loyal supporters that often fill St. James’ Park’s 53,000 capacity. More importantly, they are all managers who could take better advantage of the opportunities the Newcastle post could provide than the current Magpies boss.
Yet I would not expect Alan Pardew to be on the move any time soon. It will not be due to his abilities, or even the notion of the importance of consistency and longevity, but rather his utility to Mike Ashley. In many ways, Pardew is a stooge – he keeps out of the way whilst the controversial sponsorship deals with Wonga are made and Newcastle’s stadium is re-named, and he does not pipe up in protest when the club’s best players, such as Demba Ba, are sold for profit.
His job is simple; keep the first team running over whilst Ashley monopolises his control at the club. Furthermore, being the money-hungry business man that he is, the last thing the Newcastle owner is willing to do is hand Pardew a pay-out compensation cheque for the remaining seven years on his eight year contract, rewarded to him at the end of last season after claiming the Premier League Manager of the Year award.
It’s a shame, simply due to the fact there are plenty of better equipped managers on the market this summer that could create a real legacy at a club of Newcastle’s stature. I’m sure the Magpies fans would welcome a change in management, but unfortunately, Mike Ashley rarely has the interests of the supporters at heart.