Asking me? As a manager not really. Like the guy though, loved our Championship season but he had arguably the best squad that has ever played Championship football. Under him in the Premiership we relied a lot on long balls from the likes of Barton into Andy Carroll and then Nolan being in the right place. It was no better football than the stuff people have been unhappy with under Pardew. When Pardew came in he had no Carroll, and he got some results with people like Best and Lovenkrands in the side, I'm not at all sure Hughton would have done that tbh. Rightly or wrongly I feel Pardew is a better man manager as well. We don't know all that goes on behind the scenes so I freely admit that's speculation.
Aye, the mackems and Villa games were f***ing rotten, scoring a goal then trying to score another, then another. Where do people get this absolute rubbish?
As for Pardew coming in with no Carroll, I must have blanked out that Liverpool game. Dear me.
Loved those games. But there were some shockers as well and there was plenty of grumbling on here after some rank performances under Hughton. And yes we've had shockers under Pardew but FFS it hasn't all been shyte.
Was it just the one game Pardew had with Carroll?
Poor performances were to be expected, we'd just been promoted and spent almost nothing!
It's been largely s****. I haven't enjoyed three games in the last eighteen months, and even when we finished fifth, other than half a dozen games the football stank to high heaven.
I hardly think you can class a 3-1 defeat to West Brom alongside 0-3 and 0-6. "Shockers" doesn't begin to cover what Pardew has put us through. I'd love to know what it is about the man that has so many defending him even now. He's utterly detestable as a man and as a manager.
How is last season less worthy of the sack to you than Hughton's four months was?
Fair enough - your enjoyment is beyond debate in that no one can tell you otherwise. You go to more games than I do but I've enjoyed more of the football I've seen than you have, I probably am more easily pleased.
I don't think anyone on here is especially pro Pardew (Brett is close though), I think the most anyone would say is that he's a bang average manager. The argument centres on who would replace him if we did sack him, and would it be another bang average manager or a less than bang average manager. The Sunderland betting list is a decent starting point (although it contains a few non starters to be fair). Debates on the merits of the likes of MON, McLaren etc over Pardew are pointless imo. I would support sacking Pardew if I knew we would find an undisputable upgrade. I am not convinced our owner knows enough about the game or enough people in the game to do that.
In a rather large set of average to poor English managers that are essentially indistinguishable from each other ability wise, Pardew is the one who's capable (or desperate, if you want to see it that way) of working with the ownership without throwing his toys out the pram.
I'll take that for now given that my expectations for the club under this regime are close to nil.
