The Problem with Pardew...

http://www.thejournal.co.uk/sport/f.../newcastle-uniteds-midfield-mix-gone-6844597?

In my opinion, this is a very clear (though not concise) summary of something I have been muttering on about for a while - that Pardew is a woefully limited manager and his only success comes from a tactic of 'work hard, get it back, give it to someone better than you'. When you have Ben Arfa, you're on a tightrope, whilst Cabs and Remy have carried the team this season. I think that there's not an awful lot wrong with the Newcastle squad and whilst I will also add, grudgingly, that our league position is commensurate with the talent at our disposal, I think we should be capable of a little bit more here and there, with a decent cup run in the mix, based on the players we have and that it's the manager who hinders any chance of progress more, if not more so, than the owner ever can.

 

Keep looking over your shoulder for DMW.

 

Sissoko should move to Sunderland he is wasted at Newcastle," here endeth the lesson "

 

I think there is an actual perception within the game that Pardew is a fairly talented if volatile manager working under difficult circumstances and considerable restraints in terms of player recruitment, at this point in time I would rather be a NUFC fan with Pardew than a Man Utd fan with Moyes.

 

Thought Moyes might have been gone by now.

 

Yeah I know they talk about the long term project but they were just awful against Liverpool, Mata a world class player is looking like a sunday league player, there must be a point when the club pull the trigger cause it just seems to be getting worse.

 

Hmm, so you're ok with him because he's doing a better job at NUFC than Moyes is at MUFC? Odd logic, but fair enough, it's a world of opinions.

 

OT, but I do agree that Moyes is doing an absolutely terrible job. Interesting from Kevin Sheedy claiming he was a one trick pony at Everton (lump it to Fellaini), and it's embarrassing that he spunked £40m on a "number 10" when it's the one and only area of strength in their squad (Rooney/Kagawa/Zanuzaj). He needed to go through an immediate restructuring the moment he took over, and in Jan when he knew Vidic was on his way a new CB was an absolute must. He's playing players out of position, his soundbytes are awful and it was just a really, really poor jobs-for-the-boys play from Ferguson. SAF should have left the running of the club to the owners/directors, they should have immediately had the likes of Van Gaal or Klopp in place on 4/5 year deals. There's no way MUFC would be struggling under one of these managers.

 

A manager is useless without good players. It doesn't matter who he is. If you have limited amount of quality in your squad and lose key players, you will struggle. Its like suggesting Wenger is a moron because when Arsenal lose key players like Ramsey or Ozil is out of form, they look a bit toothless. Of course they do because they don't quite have the same quality underneath. They go from title contenders to operating at a 4th-6th level. That's football and it always has been. Look at Mourinho, he ain't daft. He only goes where there are big budgets and top players in big numbers. He did manage to pluck a load of good players for very little money when at Porto and over achieve. He was also smart enough to jump ship before they all got sold! He did talk of taking a club with a project rather money........................then rejoined Chelsea Roberto Martinez was felt to be a good up and coming manager, he still got Wigan relegated because he didn't have the players, and has struggled to break Everton into the top 4 because he doesn't have the players. Brendan Rodgers is being held up as Liverpools saviour and has done really well. He has needed to have the resource to push them there though. I wonder where they would be if their prize asset (Suarez) had been sold pre season and not replaced?

I could go but to be honest I just completely disagree with this assessment of Pardews capabilities and how managers are judged as a whole. Its like a building a bonza ham sandwich. If you have poor quality bread, it won't be great. If you have poor quality ham, it won't be great. No amount of mustard is gonna hide that When Pardew has had the good quality ham, we've over achieved which suggests he does well when given the right ham.

I'm hungry.

 

Mmmmmm. Ham.

So are you suggesting that the manager's got nothing to do with it, or am I misreading it? I don't necessarily disagree, by the way, just wondering if that's your stance.

 

I consider Alan Pardew to be a better Manager than David Moyes.

David Moyes took over the PL Champs yet sit just 5 points ahead of us with the squad he's got?

It's easy to keep pointing the finger at Pardew, saying he's limited (which I agree with to a degree) but when you consider the constraints he's working under, I think he deserves great credit. You mention that Newcastle are being "carried" by players like Cabaye & Remy this season - isn't it remarkable that those players are/were looking for moves to bigger pay-days? Remy won't stay and Cabaye has already left... Pardew managed to get them playing well... although I suppose you could argue that they were only playing that well because they want out

Mike Ashley won't loosen the purse strings yet David Moyes has spent over £60,000,000 on TWO players who are currently ****e.

It could have been worse, we could have the utterly clueless Moyes at Newcastle United!

 

Pardew can be stubborn at times such as continuing with Santon at LB, his continual use of Shola and his insistence on any free kick in and around the half way line to be taken by Krul (who can't kick for ****) and to be aimed at Williamson with a long diagonal.

However, when Colo is out we look weak at the back, take Kompany out of Man City and they're the same. We've lost Cabaye and are missing him, when Toure is missing City miss him and their performance levels drop. It's the same for Remy and Aguero. Pardew can't be blamed for our performances dropping when our best players are out. It happens at every club.

In his near four years with us I'd give Pardew 6.5 out of 10. He does always get the **** end of the stick with losing our best players, not bringing in players when needed etc so to that extent our league positions have been on par with where we should be. If we finish 8th or 9th this season, our average finish under him would be 9th. A steady achievement.

He's really let himself down in two areas for me, set pieces (although at the moment we have no decent set piece takers after selling Cabaye) and the domestic cups. His efforts in both of these areas are really, really poor.

Could a Martinez, Rodgers or Pochettino do better than Pardew? Possibly, maybe even probably, but would they stick around for the long haul if their best players were sold and not replaced and they had to work under Kinnear? Most definitely not.

He's doing a steady job, but like any manager there is room for improvement. So 6.5 from me, better set pieces and a good cup run and he'd soon be pushing an 8.

 

Ok, I know, but that's not the thread, is it? I didn't say "I think Pardew's better than Moyes". I wouldn't, because I don't. What I do think is Pardew's a severely limited manager but am open to debate on how much the manager actually influences matters.

I am in the group that holds Pardew more responsible than not for the debacles against Sunderland (constantly), Spurs and Liverpool. These are the absolute batterings we've taken under him. That doesn't also take into account some of the worst peformances seen at Newcastle such as Reading, Wigan, etc. Now the reason I do is that these performances tend to be incredibly bad, yet they keep happening with more or less the same players. The attitude and application just isn't there. In particular following both Sunderland hammerings, the manager has claimed how it wasn't good enough and set about doing whatever it is he's supposed to do to get the team ready for the next match. What follows tends to be an even worse performance. I don't see how that's the players fault alone.

I also hold Pardew accountable for the pointless exercises with Ameobi, with Cisse, with Marveaux, with Gosling. I get that it's slightly unfair to pin the depth of squad on him, but surely he's got to have some influence there? If he absolutely desperately needs a player, he has to articulate that back in the right way. I am not accusing him of appointing Joe Kinnear, but just suggesting that he has a part to play in that process and maybe - just an opinion - doesn't do enough to make it clear.

His substitutions also often beggar belief and logic - this again is a fairly consistent trait of Pardew's. But the most alarming fact for me is that after 3 years, which was the point in publishing the article above, Newcastle do not have a clear identity and certainly do not have a plan 'b'. This is the whole point and I am just encouraging argument about that specific point. If our 'identity' is "work hard, give it to Cabaye/Remy", then it's a clearly flawed plan. I don't think, with the players we have, that this identity suits us particularly well. Whether we'd be better off sitting deep then hitting hard and fast, or whether we should be about narrowing play and using players that suit that style, well, either's a preference. But when you're lining up with two 'converted' wingers, both of whom wouldn't know a byline if it smacked them on the willy, why the hell are you playing Cisse or Shola? As the above article explains, we seem to be reliant on goals from midfield, yet don't know how to get them - it seems to me that there's a lot more luck than judgement in what we achieve.

I just want to see something consistent from the team, and I think that's with the manager. I don't think this or any PL mid-table squad should ever be getting hammered by teams like Sunderland. Spurs should not be detroying us at home, it should be closer than that. In a nutshell, my argument is that our raging inconsistency is to do with the manager. He highlighted it himself when talking about Everton. He said "they're supposed to be having a great season. They're 3 points ahead of us and we're supposed to be having a terrible season". Fast forward just a couple of weeks and Everton are 8 points ahead. By contrast, Everton have taken beatings at Liverpool and Arsenal. Following BOTH results, they won their subsequent game. And we are all aware that doesn't tell the whole story either. The 4-1 they took at the Emirates flattered Arsenal hugely, whereas we were lucky to escape just conceding 3 to Sunderland and 4 to Spurs. By the way, their hammerings came AWAY from home. So this, Mr. Pardew, is why Everton are having a better season than Newcastle. And it's the reason why I think Pardew should be got rid of.

 

Pardew is an incredibly limited manager, and his tactics are fairly archaic when set against a world of possession-based football. He's generally done well under the circumstances that have been imposed upon him, however. He could and would have been sacked for quite a few things by other owners and boards, but I'm not sure that's a positive indictment of Ashley, so much a fairly obvious underlining of the direction of the club. No genuine ambition, so a manager who's doing what Pardew is doing, plodding on just above the curve, will stay for the long-term.

For what it's worth, I think Pardew and Moyes are of about the same ability, Moyes probably shading it. Moyes had Everton playing decent stuff, had them at the sharp end of the table (compared with where they were before he took over), and left Martinez with a good squad to continue with, but managing the more elite players is a completely different proposition. There's more pressure and more chance of being a failure, because failure for the top clubs is quantified by a drop of a league place or two, not ten, like it would be for one us mid-table sides.

 

Sensible post. I wonder if we had a manager with more progressive thinking, more awareness of his surroundings, would it make us a more viable proposition for players? It's like Everton, I see Baines signing a new contract when there's not a great deal of hope that Everton will ever qualify for Europe. Yet Cabaye left at the sniff of a PSG bench. He'd have left for the Arsenal bench with a smile on his face, if we'd let him. But Everton, they rarely spend money, their current best players are three loanees and they don't have an inflated salary cap. They seem to integrate youth quite effectively and now play an even better brand of football. As I think Ray Parlour said, they are always involved in the games they play, even when getting slammed by a rampant Liverpool they had a 'go' at times - against Spurs, we seemed to want to crawl into bed.

So how can we not even emulate Everton? The owner doesn't say much, there's no clear 5 year plan outlined for what they want to achieve. All I see is a club who are buying cheap, occasionally selling high, promoting youth players and giving every game a really good go. I don't think we're even that far from Everton at all - we're arguably in a better position - but I think by keeping Pardew we might as well be playing in a different league.

Are we not all hugely hacked off with NUFC turning up and having no idea how they're going to play? All I do is hope that Cisse or Ameobi are nowhere near the first team, with the sad fact being I'm often disappointed in this regard. Gosling on the bench? Why? I can't even identify with Alan Pardew, I don't really like the guy, so IMO the sooner he's gone, the sooner we can at least try and get a bit better.

 

I'd just like to add as well, I wonder if the entire backroom is stale. I was quite happy with John Carver coming back into the fold, but I have to question all of them and their influence. For the third year on the bounce we have the worst goals from corners stat of any of the 92 league clubs. THREE years. Exact same amount of time as Pards has been here.

Honestly, I don't understand in the slightest why anyone would want the guy to hang around. Biggest disappointment of this season for me is the owner fining and not sacking Pardew after Hull. Made me realise that it doesn't really matter what anyone thinks, this useless tool isn't getting the sack. Ever.

 

I think everyone is frustrated at the moment. We cannot achieve anything this season, nor will we be relegated, and have known that for weeks and weeks. The question is, why wouldn't we try incorporating youth more or playing more expansively, something that would pay off in seasons to come, and might actually inspire us to give two ****s about the rest of the year...? Well, you get slightly more money by insipidly drawing your way to 9th place

An exceptionally irritating attitude to have thrust in our faces time and time again, because it's hard to accept for any genuine fan that their club is a footballing irrelevance. Financial concerns vastly override aesthetic interest or ambition of our club, and I must apologize, as a fan, for not being able to see the game through the eyes of Rainman. I see players kicking the ball waywardly into the other half time and again, not a collection of £50 notes. Each week that passes, my levels of caring plummet to new lows.

I think a new manager, with a highly publicised commitment to a certain style of play, like Gourcuff or someone, might engage flair player better than Pardew, and might make the club a more attractive proposition for foreign and better players, but I doubt that would change anything regarding the length players would want to stay here for. They can make more money elsewhere, and that's the primary motivation of moving to us. Showcase your talent, and be bought by a club with genuine ambition who will pay you higher wages...

 

No. A manager has a big part to play. I am simply suggesting you need both and it is really difficult to assess Pardew due to all the other ****e.

Is he limited? I'm undecided basically but would probably fall on the side of him not being the best manager out there, but probably the best we are gonna get. There are times when he really frustrates me and I wonder how we can't do a bit better. I'd prefer he just ignored the board for instance and had a real go at the cups. Then I think "aye but he'd probably get the bullet". Tactically I sometimes think "**** a duck Alan, why have you set us up like that you ****". But then I can name just as many other occasions where he has had us tactically spot on. His inability to get everyone to calm down and play football last season and address confidence issues (all related) frustrated the **** out of me. He seemed to get a bit stressed. KK was the same when under pressure. It transmits to the players.

There are other times he makes me we wonder how he is getting the positive results he does. For us to finish fifth was an achievement which I don't think has ever fully been recognised. To win a manager of the year award but not be at the top clubs is not to be sniffed at. Its only been done once before in the history of the PL (George Burley). Last year was a disaster for him. There were mitigating circumstances but regardless he still underperformed. This year has been a lot more solid. there have been ups and downs but generally we have played pretty decent football and we are in a position relative or just above our resources.

I don't know. I'm just not convinced that a so called top manager would come in and do that much better. I think if you dropped Martinez, Rodgers, Pochettino, Mourinho, Wenger into his situation, they'd struggle. The question for me is slightly skewed. I think he is the best man to deal with our situation and gets the best from what we have in the main. Not least because he doesn't walk out in the huff when he gets the rug pulled which all of the aforementioned managers would. If we had a shed load more resource, I suspect the different kind of pressure that brings may expose his limitations.

 

I think I have to disagree in the end. You have to look at the starting points for certain managers - Mourinho I would agree thrives on unlimited resources and simply couldn't do a job at NUFC. However, look at where Rodgers, Pochettino, Martinez and Wenger started, look at what they had to begin with and where they are now. Are you telling me Southampton are the 8th best in the country Pochettino, or that Liverpool could be 3rd under Dalglish? Wenger has kept Arsenal at the top of the table through every challenge and almost always on a budget dwarfed by the sugardaddy clubs. Liverpool have spent a bit of money, but not without selling and not a level over and above Man Utd, Arsenal or Spurs.

There's better out there, even at our level, than Pardew. Simple as that. I'd sooner see the club attempt to bring in a Paulo Bento, Frank De Boer, Diego Simeone or someone more low-key even.

 

Everton are not going to do any better than last season, finished 6th, spurs £83 million in players, sacked AVB and are not going to improve on last season, finished 5th, the big mover is Liverpool, is that because Rodgers is a genius of a manager or because he kept Suarez, bought Sturridge and has one of the best midfield players of his generation in Gerrard. If Rodgers was at Newcastle and Pardew at Liverpool with the respective squads who do you really think would be in 2nd and 9th, Martinez has benefited from loans this season but does not have the financial resource to sustain a top run challange, Everton will start to drop the same way that Villa did when the money got tight. Don't forget as well that Martinez as a manager at Wigan was highly thought of but oversaw the gradual slide down the table each season into relegation, he may have won the FA Cup and kept his reputation intact but he was also quick to jump ship, not for him the job of bringing Wigan back to the top flight.