I think he'd be a top choice to replace, though still doubt whether it's going to happen. It's a bit laughable, though, that people say "stability is what it's all about" without actually looking at the detail. They say Fergie was nearly out, but in his season of peril he won an FA Cup - when the FA Cup meant a HELL of a lot more than it does today. He spent money, and goodness knows what he did behind the scenes that meant the Fergie Fledglings could happen. The other two pointed at are Everton and Arsenal. Everton have qualified for the Champs League under Moyes, but what he inherited was a very old, dispirited team and again revamped it completely. Very similar to Ferguson, youth became king and through the ranks appeared a constant stream of talented individuals who gradually became the bedrock of a useful side. At the same time, Moyes has balanced the books with excellent transfer activity and thus has remained employed. His one flirtation with danger did not come playing awful football - it was more like what Lambert has just done, belief in his players, his youth and a style of play. Arsenal are the same, but at a higher level. This will be their last season flirting with Spurs for a while - the books are balanced, the debt is paid up, this Summer they will be heavy investors and that, coupled with Wenger's work behind the scenes on the youth, is why he's still there in spite of 8 years (only 8? lucky bastads) without a trophy.
Compare this to Pardew. His reliance on youth was both badly judged and badly managed. He remained loyal not to the likes of Sammy or Fergie, but to Obertan and Jonas. His teams have never played with a sense of identity and our flirtation with danger has arrived with shambolic football and no youth, with foreign imports preferred time and again over youthful exuberance. He doesn't balance the books, because he doesn't have that input - his MD does that for him, which is detriment to both his strength as a manager and the structure of the club. Not that we shouldn't balance those books, of course, but they should be done with the team performance in mind. This year, with our CB shambles in particular, that was not the case. I think any fan wants stability, but it has to come with 2 or 3 provisos; the quality of football, the good management of the team/club and the hope that better is still to come.
