Alan Pardew

[colinmk]

Although there is still something about him I don't like, I can't argue with what he's done. Very impressive.

[Keefaz]

I remember Allardyce always kept banging on about building from the back: ensuring we were defensively sound first, then going on to add an attacking dimension to the side. WELL, LOOK AT THIS, YOU FAT FUCK: PARDS HAS DONE IT IN ONE SEASON!

[TRon]

Got it bang on again.

 

Pushing Cabaye that extra 15 yards further forward meant he dictated the game. Scored 2 and made the other.

 

We're starting to look like a proper team. Not just a decent one with a few good players who are nicking results but a really good XI with quality in every area of the park. Dominating teams at home, slicing them apart away with pace and finishing.

 

Just hope Ashley recognises what he's got and adds to it in the summer. 2 or 3 new quality players to compliment what we've got and we're fucking laughing. Really, really encouraging at the minute.

 

The way we are playing now is how I imagined we were going to play when we signed all those players from France in the summer, which is why it was so frustrating to see us playing long ball with Obertan starting ahead of Ben Arfa for the first half of the season. As it turns out I have to hold my hands up and say Pardew has got it right with Hatem. Not only is he now playing fantastic football, he's also clearly playing with a team ethic which will add millions to his value. If Pards did all this with the end in mind then he's a football genius. Full credit anyway, the football we are playing now is superb.

[colinmk]

Got it bang on again.

 

Pushing Cabaye that extra 15 yards further forward meant he dictated the game. Scored 2 and made the other.

 

We're starting to look like a proper team. Not just a decent one with a few good players who are nicking results but a really good XI with quality in every area of the park. Dominating teams at home, slicing them apart away with pace and finishing.

 

Just hope Ashley recognises what he's got and adds to it in the summer. 2 or 3 new quality players to compliment what we've got and we're fucking laughing. Really, really encouraging at the minute.

 

The way we are playing now is how I imagined we were going to play when we signed all those players from France in the summer, which is why it was so frustrating to see us playing long ball with Obertan starting ahead of Ben Arfa for the first half of the season. As it turns out I have to hold my hands up and say Pardew has got it right with Hatem. Not only is he now playing fantastic football, he's also clearly playing with a team ethic which will add millions to his value. If Pards did all this with the end in mind then he's a football genius. Full credit anyway, the football we are playing now is superb.

 

Totally agree. Holding my hands up and saying fair play with Ben Arfa. Just can't argue with what's happened, Pardew 10 colinmk 0.

[Pilko]

Pushing Cabaye further up the pitch yesterday was a stroke of genius which essentially made sure we won the game.

[LiquidAK]

Anyone got the picture of him surrounded by da ladiez on holiday? I need it for something.

[Dave]

A high-tempo practice game ends at Newcastle United’s Darsley Park training centre in north Tyneside and a few players begin to funnel towards the changing room. It’s been a long season, tiredness now stalks the team but there’s still much to play for. Two days before their 34th Premier League fixture — which they won 3-0 yesterday — there is the possibility of a Champions League place and it comes with the certainty that both team and club are progressing.

 

No longer do Newcastle burn money and accumulate debt. Last season they recorded a £32.5m profit, the highest in the Premier League. The club have cleared all external debt and there are no interest repayments on the £130m still owed to Mike Ashley, the club’s owner. But on the pitch and at training is where the evidence of the club’s good health is most apparent.

 

Players linger after their session at Darsley Park. Jonas Gutierrez, Ryan Taylor, Dan Gosling and James Perch play a game of football-golf where the aim is to manoeuvre a football from point to point in the fewest number of kicks. There are no winners — just an extended submersion in the ice bath for whoever finishes last. Out on the pitch Demba Ba works on his finishing with coaches John Carver and Steve Stone. Carver describes a defender Ba will encounter: “He stands upright and if you go at him like this, you’ll get past him.” At the other end of the training pitch, goalkeeping coach Andy Woodman speaks earnestly with reserve keeper Robbie Elliot but it is perhaps the two players shooting hoops that best express the mood.

 

Here beneath the basketball net the 30-year-old Shola Ameobi shoots the breeze with 20-year-old reserve defender James Tavernier; they try jump shots, three-pointers, Ameobi leaps and grabs the hoop, levering himself up like an NBA star. Tavernier jumps but can’t quite get there. They laugh, they try to outdo each other and it will be a sorry day when they have to work for a living. There is a buoyancy that has been reflected in the performances of Mike Williamson and Perch when injuries to others offered them opportunities. Through the eyes of their teammates, they have been stars.

 

Alan Pardew started his working life as a glazier before moving slowly through the ranks of non-league football to Yeovil Town. From there he got a £7,500 move to Crystal Palace. He scored the winner in an FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool and has been a manager at Reading, West Ham, Charlton, Southampton and now Newcastle. It is the stuff of three or four careers. Pardew is 50. He had never met Ashley before being interviewed for the Newcastle job but felt a connection at that first meeting. Pardew admired Ashley’s business acumen and the owner liked what he saw of the out-of-work manager, though Pardew still knew he was lucky to get the job. His CV wasn’t bad and it improved on closer examination but it didn’t make him a likely successor to Chris Hughton. One poll showed only 5.5% of Newcastle fans wanted him but Pardew was ready for the challenge.

 

“I had a good feeling about Mike. There was nothing snobbish about his attitude to who should manage Newcastle. I am not Pardinho but he wasn’t bothered by that.” The opportunity came with strings attached. He was replacing a man who most football people saw as victim of an injustice. “Chris was doing a good job, he is a very good coach and he’s now doing a great job at Birmingham. But it was obvious that Mike and Derek [Llambias, the managing director] didn’t want to go forward with Chris; it was the same for me at Southampton, where I felt I was doing a good job. So I didn’t have any sympathy for Chris because I’d had it [the same treatment] at Southampton. That’s just how it is.”

 

Pardew’s first game as Newcastle manager was Liverpool at St James’ Park. It felt like the game of his life. His team won 3-1; Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton and Andy Carroll got the goals but Pardew already knew that Ashley and Llambias weren’t keen to keep Barton and Nolan at the club any longer than was necessary. He didn’t know that within three months Carroll would be sold to Liverpool. “Andy Carroll was a blow to me when he left,” Pardew says. “My ambition for Andy was to mould him into the England centre-forward and I couldn’t wait to work with him but the fee was . . . . well, we were all looking at each other and saying, ‘What can we do? This fee is ridiculous for the experience he had, 16 Premier League games’. But it left us so vulnerable, last day of the window, no striker, and we weren’t safe.”

 

But the team got wins when they needed them and managed to stay beyond the reach of the octopus that drags unfortunates into the land of relegation. “The players done marvellous jobs to get us over the line, Kevin and Joey played a big role in that,” says Pardew. “All the time I was putting little things in, drip-feeding changes and the two lads bought into that but it was evident the board didn’t want to renegotiate their contracts and my hands were tied.”

 

Perhaps he didn’t try too hard to wriggle himself free. Were Barton and Nolan oak trees, tall and strong but in whose shadow others couldn’t grow? “That’s a clever way of putting it but I would put it differently. They are two giant characters but they’re winners as well, right up my street and I had a good relationship with both of them. Down through the years, I’ve had a member of staff say, ‘We can’t lose him because in the dressing room, he’s the funny one and everyone loves him’. “And I say, ‘No, he’s gotta go and when he goes, a new comedian will emerge’. It’s just natural, you have the comedian, the sulky one, the moody one, the funny one, the one who farts a lot, the one who plays the practical jokes, the one who sleeps around or whatever, all that. Take one out and someone replaces him, automatically. It’s just the way of the group.

 

“And that is what happened here. It was a gamble because if we didn’t have somebody to replace them big characters we would have been in trouble. We had a ready-made leader in [Fabricio] Coloccini, who just needed that armband to take on the role and I didn’t hesitate on that one. And in attracting Demba Ba to the club, not only did we get playing ability but we’ve got leadership as well.” Pardew doesn’t want to compare his new captain to his former leaders but around the club, there is a belief that the Argentinian’s leadership is more inclusive and better for the squad.

 

The manager has got much else right. He has managed to draw the best from Hatem Ben Arfa — “I watched and re-watched that goal against Everton [last season] and thought there won’t be many times in my career that I get to work with someone this talented,” says Pardew. “I’ve had to work hard with Hatem, he had a terrible injury, I pitched him back in a bit early and felt the second time I brought him back that it had to be right. “He felt a little bit let down by me initially. I understood that, and I handled that better than I would have when I was younger. Hatem puts a barrier up, keeps people out, lots of very good players do that. Teddy [sheringham] used to do it but if you can get inside the wall, you’ll find a strong and likeable character. As well as that, Hatem’s got some good people around him and that helps.”

 

Pardew’s ability to man-manage has been needed since the arrival of Papiss Cisse, a £9m signing from Freiburg in the Bundesliga who has fitted in well, scored plenty of goals. Meanwhile Senegalese compatriot Demba Ba has lost his scoring touch. “I’ve got to make sure this works, they’ve both got great ability but they are very different,” says Pardew. “Demba is more creative, can link play well and make lots of good passes. Papiss just lives for getting on the end of things, putting the ball in the net.” Ashley backed Pardew on Cisse even though the owner carries the scars left by overpriced signings and is against paying big money.

 

Pardew understands the caution. “We can’t put ourselves at risk. Leeds, Portsmouth, Rangers: heads in the sands, decisions based on emotion, there’s no way Mike and Derek are going to do that. Mike’s put something like £273m into the club and he’s not taken anything back. Since I’ve been here I have not really shouted his corner. Politically for me it’s a minefield. I want to keep the fans in a good place but I would say to them, before they get emotional about it, that Mike has invested something like 25% of his personal wealth in this football club.

“Ask me for 25% of my money and you’ve got no chance, I don’t care how good your idea is.”

[Cajun]

And my bairn's winning streak since he was born... Played 6 and won them arl.

 

Oh look at me, I've never seen the Toon lose...pathetic.

 

 

Good record though.

 

HTT, you changed your mind about Pardew?

 

Cue, 6 page assault on how Pardew is now playing the way he (HTT) would have done all season and it is in spite of AP that we are where we are

 

 

Tbf HTT ate his humble pie yesterday.

[Darth Crooks]

It’s just natural, you have the comedian, the sulky one, the moody one, the funny one, the one who farts a lot, the one who plays the practical jokes, the one who sleeps around or whatever, all that. Take one out and someone replaces him, automatically. It’s just the way of the group.

 

Howay, name names pards

 

 

[JH]

It’s just natural, you have the comedian, the sulky one, the moody one, the funny one, the one who farts a lot, the one who plays the practical jokes, the one who sleeps around or whatever, all that. Take one out and someone replaces him, automatically. It’s just the way of the group.

 

Howay, name names pards

 

http://i.imgur.com/01RpZ.png

[Wallace]

Got it bang on again.

 

Pushing Cabaye that extra 15 yards further forward meant he dictated the game. Scored 2 and made the other.

 

We're starting to look like a proper team. Not just a decent one with a few good players who are nicking results but a really good XI with quality in every area of the park. Dominating teams at home, slicing them apart away with pace and finishing.

 

Just hope Ashley recognises what he's got and adds to it in the summer. 2 or 3 new quality players to compliment what we've got and we're f***ing laughing. Really, really encouraging at the minute.

 

The way we are playing now is how I imagined we were going to play when we signed all those players from France in the summer, which is why it was so frustrating to see us playing long ball with Obertan starting ahead of Ben Arfa for the first half of the season. As it turns out I have to hold my hands up and say Pardew has got it right with Hatem. Not only is he now playing fantastic football, he's also clearly playing with a team ethic which will add millions to his value. If Pards did all this with the end in mind then he's a football genius. Full credit anyway, the football we are playing now is superb.

 

Pardew talked about changing our style of play into a more fluid style during the close season and Cabaye also talked about it when he signed. I think not getting the extra striker he wanted combined with Ben Arfa getting another bad injury in pre-season meant that he had to re-think things.

 

It is good to see it happening now though as I felt our style of play had been somewhat of an anti-climax after all the pre-season talk.

 

 

[henke]

Who's the farter?

[Darth Crooks]

Danny Guffrie

[Skeletor]

 

Sorry for Pardy rocking.

[Guest dogbeak]

fancy a chuckle at the vagaries of hindsight? open this thread to page one some time 

[mrmojorisin75]

fancy a chuckle at the vagaries of hindsight? open this thread to page one some time 

 

jesus

 

read with interest what he said about hughton and being sacked from southampton...made me like him more tnh

[Skirge]

Four games left and a top 6 finish guaranteed, what an outstanding job this man has done. To come here knowing he was not wanted by the fans, to a club where the owner was hated, a loved manager had just been sacked, then to have his star striker sold.

He has to be manager of the year he just has to be, no one gave us a chance, a lot thought we would go down, no fans even dreamt of this kind of season.

Take a bow Alan take a bow.

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

[Greg]

At least it would be funny when he went through Ashley's daughter.

 

She should be lined up so we can all have a go at her.

 

[Yorkie]

I know our squad is hardly brimming with talent but there are some good players there who have stuck with us when they probably shouldn't have, and players who plenty of other clubs would want. IMO we're staring down the barrel of a Souness-style demolition of the team, squad and possibly club here.

 

I'm not pulling out this quote to pick on Dave or anything; it just highlights what a low ebb we thought his appointment was - summarises perfectly the negative feeling towards the change. I didn't think any differently to this.

 

Absolutely astonishing how it has all panned out. And as much as i love Pardew, i'd still maintain that his appointment is a fluke.

[Ronaldo]

We could lose every remaining game 5-0 and the season would still represent a huge, huge success.

 

62 points, man. Incredible.

 

 

[Yorkie]

We could lose every remaining game 5-0 and the season would still represent a huge, huge success.

 

62 points, man. Incredible.

 

To have lost the last four games 5-0 (considering our current form)... on top of conceding 5 already twice this season... would represent a bit of a worry imhotbph.

[BottledDog]

I know our squad is hardly brimming with talent but there are some good players there who have stuck with us when they probably shouldn't have, and players who plenty of other clubs would want. IMO we're staring down the barrel of a Souness-style demolition of the team, squad and possibly club here.

 

I'm not pulling out this quote to pick on Dave or anything; it just highlights what a low ebb we thought his appointment was - summarises perfectly the negative feeling towards the change. I didn't think any differently to this.

 

Absolutely astonishing how it has all panned out. And as much as i love Pardew, i'd still maintain that his appointment is a fluke.

 

I just can't get my head around this idea. Hughtons departure you felt was inevitable after Calderwood wasn't replaced and they were clearly planning for a change and a manager they felt they could work with and take us forward within their particular framework.  I'd say they used the same principle they now use in the player recruitment. Forget the name, check the background, see the worth in someone with maybe something to prove, and after meeting face to face, Pardew seemed the right fit.

 

Of course he's doing particularly well, they were planning top ten for his first full season, then top eight the following year, but I still don't get how you think a planned jettisoning of Hughton, and a process you'd imagine they'd be just as careful over as signing a player (if not more so) ending up with Pardew is particullary flukey?

[Dave]

It's only a fluke in that I can't believe that they thought things would possibly work out quite as well as they have to date. As an appointment it was about as calculated as you can get, fair play.

[BottledDog]

It's only a fluke in that I can't believe that they thought things would possibly work out quite as well as they have to date. As an appointment it was about as calculated as you can get, fair play.

 

They'd have been right spazz's if they thought things would work out quite as well as they have to date though to be fair.

[Yorkie]

I think they appointed Pardew because he's a media darling, and because he would be a yes-man - counting his lucky chickens that he ever got a gig like Newcastle United. I believe that he was brought in to keep us ticking over on the pitch, and make a bridge between the boardroom and the supporters... until they sold it. I still reckon Pardew was lined up well before Hughton got the boot n'all; either that or it's a total mad coincidence that Golfmag was going on about it two months prior to the sacking.

 

Call that cynical if you want; it probably is, but i refuse to believe that - after sacking Hughton - they (or anyone) believed that Pardew was brought in to take us to the 'next level' (ie, European competition).

 

Fortunately, it's worked out very well and - with the foundation of an excellent scouting network - Pardew has turned into an excellent appointment not only from a PR perspective, but from a footballing one as well.

 

Whether or not they still have intentions to sell the club is up in the air. Our surprising success might have just altered their long-term mentality.