People like to rewrite history, but whether you like him as a person or not, Pardew did a good job for us and brought probably the two most important players to the club in our back to back promotions (Rickie and Jose).
Pardew was a decent manager for us, a lot of people were upset when he got the sack, but ours was a mutually beneficial relationship, with both parties moving on to bigger and better things. As said above, he was instumental in attracting players like Fonte & Lambert to the club and the JPT gave us a spring in our step that let us know we were on the way back up.
An alternate way of looking at it would be that Pardew only managed to earn 83 points (73 after points deduction) despite at the time having the biggest budget of any 3rd tier side ever. Pardew spent a lot of money relative to the rest of the league, had a huge wage bill and some very talented players, many of which showed that in the Championship and Premier League. In 2007/08 Leeds United had a 15 point deduction and still made the playoffs, despite having a much smaller budget than Pardew did at Saints in 2009/10. I'd suggest Pardew underachieved in 2009/10, and I think Nicola Cortese felt similar and sacked him after 3 games the following season. The JPT win glossed over Pardew's flaws in the league for a lot Saints fans. He really should have done a lot better with that squad.
I don't know the full facts of the Leeds situation but Pardew took over a depleted, demoralised squad and, apart from Rickie and Deano signed a lot of free and loan players in August (the majority of money being spent in January) without any pre season to prepare. The team did not climb out of the bottom four until December and we were still well adrift at the end of February (when the team started to gel). The team then went on a fantastic run during March and April, playing some great football but narrowly failed to make the play-offs by 3 points and won the JPT. We will never know how the team would've fared in 2010/11 under AP, but judging by the way the team played at the end of the previous season I think that we would've got automatic promotion.
I don't think Saints fans were clamouring for Pardew's sacking...fans tend to have more patience than Cortese. I was surprised at the time and worried.
Yes, I have no beef with him at all. He was persuaded to join a club in L1 on -10 points and I remember him talking about developing a "winning mentality" from the despair and defeatism which he found on arrival. I was there at Wembley and will remember that forever. He's not a terrible manager, but he's not good enough for Saints now, IMO.
It shouldn't be hard for us to remember Pards quite fondly, Nic pulled the trigger at a very precise moment. Were I a Toon fan, I'd be sick of the sight of him.
This. Our defence has been woeful, our midfield has been hard-working but insipid, and our forward line can't score goals. All in all, pretty confident about taking something from a club that has pretty much gone down our road, but obviously with much better scouts and a more intelligent plan Tadic is quite honestly sexual.
It does indeed. I had never heard the term winning mentality applied to football before Pardew said it. Nowadays everybody says it. Pardew talked about the losing mentality that had been prevalent at Saints when he turned up. I can well remember him talking about the dressing room and looking into the players faces and seeing that they had become to accept defeat as a norm. He turned that losing juggernaut around and it took him a while, but he did it. We owe him that one. And the JPT competition was an utter delight from beginning to victorious end. Lovely days, and they just got better.
Hope he's not using up all his goals. I also hope he makes a 15-20 min appearance on Sat though that looks unlikely. I think it'll be 2-2 Long and Ward-Prowse.
I never liked Pardew, but then I never warmed to Adkins either. I don't think managers need to be likeable as much as effective - see Sir Alex for details. Mind you, I do like Koeman.
Just received an e-mail from a Newcastle fan saying that she hopes Saints win so they can get rid of Pardew and the owner. Can't imagine ever feeling like that myself about Saints.
