 Thursday, 9th Dec 2010 13:10 by Saints Flyer The rough guide to Alan Pardew for the Toon Army from Saints Flyer
I was asked to write a piece for a Newcastle publication on Alan Pardew, so I thought it might be interesting to put it up on here too and compare comments Six months ago Alan Pardew was the toast of Southampton, you would have been hard pressed for anyone to have a bad word about him, however such is the fickleness of football fans, once he had left, the rose tinted glasses came off and the general consensus is now that Pardew did an average job for Saints in League 1 rather than a good or even great one. Yes when he took over Saints were in disaray and only a fortnight before his arrival there was a very good chance that the club would go out of business before being saved literally at the last minute, therefore Pardew was excused, of course the ten point deduction wasnt his fault and initially the fact that it was 8 matches before he registered a league win was also seen as something out of his hands, in fact by mid December last year he had got the club to within 7 points of a play off spot and everything was going well or was it ? In the January transfer window, Pardew was given more money to spend by a Chairman who having bankrolled him big in August was prepared to do so again, after some big, well in league 1 terms. signing including almost a million on Jose Fonte, by February we had drifted out to 18 points off sixth place and relationships were clearly strained between manager and chairman, our win at Wembley in the Johnstones paint trophy Final merely served to paper over a few cracks. Come the end of the season rumours were rife that Pardew was about to be sacked and leaks from allegedly from those close to Pardew's backroom staff named a day when Pardew fully expected to meet the chairman and get the sack, breaths were held, but instead of news of a sacking came a prepared club statement saying Manager and Chairman were completely in tandem and working together despite those who would say otherwise, history now tells us that was little more than a smokescreen, why Pardew and Saints didnt part company then is a mystery, seemingly the manager knew by hanging on he would get a payout and the Chairman was determined not to pay it, the only real result was complete disaray.. Few players were signed in the summer and the death of the clubs owner after the opening game put us into a state of limbo for a week or two, then came the big bombshell after a 4-0 away win at Bristol Rovers Pardew was sacked to a huge outcry from the fans, at that time many thought he had done a great job, not true but in fairness to him even his fiercist critic's were saying it was average. Since then our Chairman has rarely missed an opportunity to directly or indirectly take a swipe, rumours were put out that the Chairman han no choice but to sack Pardew and take your choice from his drinking or an affair with a players wife as the reason, all this of course was total mud slinging and certainly Pardew always came across as a decent man who certainly didnt deserve this sort of treatment, perhaps the real reason would be more in the direction that the Chairman had imposed a signing or two on the manager and also liked to, lets say give advice on what team should be picked, this would be unacceptable to most managers in England and Pardew was no different. The parting of the ways was not a shock to Saints supporters, merely the timing of the act and the fact that it was hard to see who we could get who was better. His appointment as Newcastle boss was perhaps a bigger shock though, although most backed him as a League 1 or Championship manager, even most of his supporters in the Saints fan base questioned his ability to take us back to the Premiership and keep us there, hindsight shows us that at the helm of a club in League 1 who were Chelsea in spending power, he failed to get us within a sniff of promotion and that somewhere along the line had to be down to management, it certainly wasnt about the quality of the squad, Saints had enough players to put out a team that could not only win promotion automatically, but put out a reserve squad that should make the play offs, the blunt truth is we did neither and we should have. Tactically Pardew appeared naive, he would often get it wrong selection wise and we saw substitutions made before half time on more than one occasion and early double substitutions in the second half were commonplace, in hindsight we were too one dimensional and relied too much on Rickie Lambert who was in a purple patch of free kicks and penalties but rarely scored from total open play. In summary Alan Pardew is a decent man with an above track record albeit outside the Premiership, in this respect his reputation perhaps overshadows reality, he has only two years experience in managing in the top flight, the first at West Ham, then the second where he spent the first half of 06/07with the Hammers before taking over at Charlton in the second half of the season and presiding over their relegation, he remains an enigma, perhaps some would say a man who puts Alan Pardew first and the club second, certainly Reading & Charlton fans dont have a good word for him although West Ham fans respect him for getting them to the Cup final but dont revere him, and perhaps that best sums up Saints fans views, since he has gone the general opinion seems to be he did an Ok job but Nigel Adkins is the better man for the job, and that is where we began this piece, by pondering how football fans can be so fickle. 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