The 8 year contract they handed him with the explicit statement that for the sake of stability they would not chop and change after one disappointing period. Not saying I agree with their very likely reasoning, but that's what it will be. Who knows, if they back him in the summer, and we suffer a little less injuries to key players, without the additional pressure of playing in Europe, Pardew could well have us challenging for Europe again. There is no way of knowing how it will work out unless they try, and to prevent losing face after that stability guff try they almost certainly will.
To give a man with a relatively poor track record who had one good season (based largely on the individual brilliance of a few key players) something akin to carte blanche seems a bit unreasonable to me.
Yet that's exactly what they did, and I can't see them going back on that decision so soon, seeing as it will make them look like buffoons who say one thing one day, and then proceed to do the opposite the next.