Pardew would have got us out of League One, albeit via the play-offs. We only missed out on the play-offs in the first year due to our ten point penalty and given the trauma we'd all be through pre-Liebherr, there was a lot of acclimatising to be done.
We started out like a rocket in the Championship and that's due to the belief that Adkins had instilled in the team. This gave us the momentum to push on and escape the Championship on the first attempt. I don't think we would have had quite the momentum had we gone up via the play-offs.