OK, name them.
Me, can't stand the bloke. Thought he was a crap manager when he arrived, thought he was crap manager last season, think he's a crap manager now.
I don't do knee jerk.
Did you, Sir, remain flaccid when we played like a dream at the Hawthorns, or shrugged and emitted a "flukey win, that" when we beat Man U, or did you by any chance lay there counting till ten in a missionary position as he took us to our first 5th place finish in years thinking, "oh he'll be done soon enough?"
I ask because I don't know how you have to be knee-jerk to give credit where it's due. One can be sans any kind of jerking, knee or otherwise, simply by reacting as a human being to what's being put in front of you.
He was hardly a crap manager last season, and to say otherwise is using hindsight to simply back your own opinion on him.
I never rated him highly when he arrived either, but I'm putting my fingers where the keyboard is and saying after last season, I have at least some amount of faith in him, and that he may just turn this around, the silver-haired fox. I could be wrong, but adults make choices and take stances where they could possibly turn out to be wrong, but they do so based on evidence (for me that is evidence of last season, not this season -- just to clarify).
That's a fucking great post that should be read and absorbed by everyone.
It's written with the superb poise and dramatic flair you'd expect of DJ, but the content is questionable.
To look at WBA and Man Utd games in isolation is as fatuous as looking at only the last three games, tbh. At least some of those who hold an opinion of him as an average-to-terrible manager (and I include myself in that bracket) do so on the basis of his tenure as a whole, and those tenures which preceded it.
In this tenure, as I've mentioned previously, he has 6/7 impressive games out of the last 48 (including those mentioned in DJ's post) which indicates to me they are the exception rather than the rule. We obviously had a masterfully enjoyable season results-wise in 2011/12, but I rarely - if ever - felt like I was watching a top-five team.
By all means, I give credit to Pardew for his tactics at Stoke, some of his PR work and for his thorough preparation (the alleged opponent dossiers etc) but in the grand scheme of things - looking at the big picture - he has never shown enough managerial skills to be a long-term success.
I wouldn't say his performance as a manager was crap last season, but he was fortunate to work with a first XI that I think an Allardyce or a Pulis could have comfortably steered into a top 7 position. So, I wouldn't say his performance was good either. The team, and in particular Ba, Cisse, HBA, Colo and Krul, were immense all having fantastic seasons (/half-seasons). Pardew was slightly below average.
Can't see anything wrong with malandro or anyone else failing to have ever been convinced by Pardew. I understand there is frustration with some on the board for giving him stick for things he is not at fault for, and for denigrating his few redeeming moments/features - and that is fair enough, but if malandro believes him to always have been a "craperage" manager, the cherry-picked 6/7 games from Pardew apologists do nothing (or negligible damage) to refute such a stance.
Think that's a fair appraisal and where I am at this point. I don't think he's terrible and wouldn't go that far, I think he's average but has imporved in some areas from his West Ham and S'ton days. His organisation it is said is as good as many in the league, and most of the time I'd go along with that. My main concern is that his vision (primarily def first football) doesn't sit well with the identity of the club or the aspirations of the maj of the support.
