The Grass is Always Greener: Not Even Alan Could Pardew Better

Although I do not believe the sentiment has been echoed here on Coming Home Newcastle, if you have spent any time reading other sports news sites, you have likely seen variations of "don’t you wish you hadn’t run Alan Pardew out?" The state of things at the club is absolutely dire right now, but this gloating accusation that Newcastle fans brought this run of form upon ourselves carries an assumption that things would be different if Pardew were still around. John Carver is not the manager we need, but neither is Alan Pardew.

Alan Pardew has done alright so far at Crystal Palace, but we kind of expected he would. If I had to pick two words to describe the form Pardew’s managing style produces, I would go with "consistently inconsistent." Under Pardew, Newcastle could string together a win against Chelsea then turn around and lose a home game to Sunderland two weeks later. Between October and November of 2014, the Magpies won 5 in a row, including games against the likes of Tottenham and Liverpool, and yet a mere six or seven months before that, Pardew’s Newcastle were slogging through a humiliating 6-game losing streak made all the worse by a net goal differential of -16.

Our critics who seem to have forgotten about that dismal time (or those who just were not even paying attention) probably also forget just how toxic Pardew was to the culture surrounding the club. Pardew’s excuses were many.  The fans were too loud.  The fans were not loud enough.  If Alan were on the touchline, he could have stopped Swansea’s winning goal.  (ed.: This was one of my favorite Pardewisms!)

Let’s not forget why Pardew was not on the touchline for that game: he headbutted Davi Meyler during a match against Hull City and earned himself a 7-game suspension.

And in a time when Newcastle badly needed some greater offensive options, he left Hatem Ben Arfa to wither on the bench because of a long-running clash of personalities.

Yes, this rut Newcastle is in right now is very difficult to watch. Yes, there is a very real danger that we could be relegated.  But no, because I can remember longer than a few months ago, I absolutely do not regret losing Alan Pardew to another team.