Just as well you warned them that another Premier League team, at home on opening day, won't be a pushover BTW, didn't we beat them last time, how long does a 'bogey' continue?
Big Sam looks like he's on borrowed time. I can't see any of the promoted teams being the 'first' casualty of the season as they have earned the right to some faith through the first 2-3 months and there's usually a manager who doesn't last that long. Lambert, Irvine also look shaky but I think Bruce has a lot of credit in the bank from last season and Pardew has shown himself to be almost unsackable so I'm surprised he is as high up as that (the outlay hasn't been much when you take out the £30m+ from sales this year). Poyet is safe unless things go spectacularly badly, Short surely knows that after changing managers a number of times in the past few years he needs stability and Poyet is as good as prospect as is available.
I think we've dropped on our best manager for years almost by accident. No offence but Pardew wasn't exactly in demand before going to Newcastle, despite that he's still there being given money. Poyet has a brain and the backing of a patient owner, I just can't see us doing badly this season.
No offence taken, I'm not going to start defending Pardew or being offended by criticism to him. I'll 'support' him as he's our manager but I don't rate him and if circumstances transpired so that he was no longer our manager I wouldn't be too concerned. I do think some of our fans are overly harsh on him though. We're a mid-table squad and somehow finished 5th a couple of seasons back and then were doing very well last season pre Cabayegate. No idea how though as there is nothing which Pardew seems to actually have going for him - his isolation of Ben Arfa and Gutierrez in recent times is just more to add to the list.
I'm still undecided on Poyet (for what it's worth). He does seem to have something about him and obviously got some great results at the end of the season. Was unconvinced by some of his selections, especially early in his tenure (leaving out players like Giac for a while), but he knows what's going on better than the rest of us and the proof of the pudding is in his favour so far! I think he's your best manager for a few years but I'm not convinced he's going to manage at an even higher level or going to raise you above mid-table (which there is no shame in at all!). I am pretty regularly wrong though...
My badly made point is that Newcastle went through various duff managers like Sam, KK, Hughton, Shearer, JFK, etc and dropped on Pardew. I remember how little enthusiasm there was but he got you into Europe. Sometimes it's just pot luck and I think we have it with Poyet.
Giacc couldn't handle the pace and physicality, he was getting knocked about pillar to post. He needed to be bled in slowly. He featured heavily all season mostly and imo correctly from the bench. 1 goal and 3 assists in the great escape games at the end of the season shows Poyet handled him well. He'll see more starts this season, he'll be a big player for us.
So the first manager out of a job was the manager of the year last year Tony Pulis. Just shows than you never really know what's going to happen next...
