Quote it so not to drive traffic to that pathetic mess of a place.
By any objective measure Alan Pardew is a good manager
Over his career, his win percentage is 42% from over 715 games. That’s no accident. You don’t get that record from being a bad manager.
It is a similar record to David Moyes (44%), who was good enough to be offered the Man Utd job. It’s far better than Tony Pulis (36%), Steve Bruce (36%), Mark Hughes (39%) and Harry Redknapp (40%). Redknapp, who was talked about for the England job; and who recently managed Spurs, a club with the kind of ambition many Newcastle supporters would like us to have. A career win percentage higher than 40% indicates a good manager, and Alan Pardew should be categorised as such.
(Ed: Win record under Pardew – Reading 48% West Ham 41% Charlton 31%, Southampton 53% and Newcastle 38% – Reading and Southampton were in lower leagues, also case at West Ham as well for part of time)
So why the hell did we hound him out of the club? The problem was never Pardew – the problem was (and continues to be) the owner. We just got rid of the wrong guy. For those of you responsible, I hope you’re all ashamed of yourselves. You should be.
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Before you ask, yes – I witnessed the 0-6 drubbing to Liverpool, I’ve seen us drop out of countless cups with barely a whimper, I’ve seen the dreadful run of results against Sunderland.
But I’ve also seen us beat Chelsea at home 3 times in a row; beat Man Utd at Old Trafford. I witnessed one of the best midfield partnerships in recent times (Cabaye; Tiote) and one of the most effective attacking teams the premier league has seen in the last 5 years when Cisse, Ba and Ben Arfa tore teams apart. That formation 4-3-3 with that team and those players – that was Pardew. You think someone else did that?
I’ve also seen the team play many many times, and they played for Pardew. He hadn’t lost the dressing room, they played for him. They worked for him. That doesn’t happen if the manager is bad.
What really gets me angry is the brigade who say that everything that went wrong was Pardew’s fault, yet everything that went right was nothing to do with him. It doesn’t make sense. Either he’s responsible for everything (good and bad), or he’s responsible for nothing. Make up your mind.
History, and objective opinion, will show Pardew’s time at Newcastle as a success. He led us to top 5 and top 10 finishes, and left us in the top 10 again when he departed for Palace. And he did all of that against a background where we sold our playmaker (Cabaye), where we sold our star striker (Carroll), where we sold our star striker again (Ba) and where Newcastle failed to keep our star striker yet again (Remy).
Yes, for a season we flirted with relegation – a season of terrible injuries, catastrophic loss of form for Cisse, bad luck and French international defenders who looked like they’d never seen a football before (Yanga-Mbiwa, Debuchy). A flirtation with relegation can happen to any club, big or small – Everton finished 17th in ’03-’04, under Moyes, with 39 points and only one position above the drop zone. It happens – to big clubs with good managers.
I’m not happy with the state of affairs at Newcastle, but Ashley is the problem.
In fact, the only goddamn thing he’s done right in recent times is appoint Alan Pardew, and an ignorant bunch of you just went and messed that up, didn’t you?
So you actually enjoyed the dour football that Pardew's team played?