Pardew: “I’m not going to put out teams just to look at fringe players”
Posted on April 16th, 2011 | 34 Comments |
On Tuesday we’re hosting some little team of no-hopers from Manchester. I think they call themselves ‘United’, although I’m not sure.
The Alan Pardew Project has been talking about how he thinks the Manchester United manager might approach the game:
“Alex will be looking at it and thinking it’s a really big game on their agenda.
“He’s got us and Arsenal away, and he probably thinks they’re two tough games which will have a massive bearing on their season.
“I think he will target it. He won’t come here resting players because it’s the Premier League, not the FA Cup semi-final, and that’s their priority.
“He will police today’s semi-final and if he can save players for Tuesday, or take someone off to protect them, he will.
“They will be a really tough team to beat, but we’re really looking forward to it. We hope this is a difficult place for them to come. We’ve beaten Liverpool here in my first game, and we want another scalp.“
For any literalists out there I should point out that as far as I know Alan pardew is not a Red Indian and will not be setting about Ryan Giggs with a Gillette Fusion and a pair of gardening shears.
Pardew then goes on to assess how he thinks the season is going.
“It’s been a good season, but we’ve still got work to do.
“We’re a stable mid-table side at the moment, but we’ve got six games to go and we want to finish well.
“It’s been a good season for a newly-promoted side, but it’s only at the end of the season when you can reflect.
“We want to move forward, and there’s a little bit of stuff going on at the moment in terms of building the squad for next season. There are some players here who are playing for their future, and that’s a good thing to have at this stage of the season.
“I’d like a win, or another couple of points, as quickly as possible, because then we could start to look at what various players’ situation will be at the end of the season.”
Which is fair enough, but I wonder how we’re going to assess those players because he goes on to say:
“But I’m not going to put out teams just to look at fringe players. I think it’s important we finish well because of the momentum that brings going into next season. I’m going to play my strongest side where I can.”
So I presume the ‘fringe’ players will be assessed on the training ground and in reserve matches. I’m not necessarily being critical of that policy because we can only put 11 players on the pitch at one time and we need to win matches, but sometimes players don’t shine until they’re given the opportunity to do so.
Take Leon Best as an example. Okay, he may not be a ‘world class striker’ but, once he was given the opportunity, he proved himself (to me at least) to be far better than I thought he was.
Maybe it is inevitable at every football club. Good players slip through the net through lack of opportunity and then they go somewhere else, get the opportunities and prove themselves.
NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen
I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10).
Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.
We have to aim to finish as high as possible to encourage others to sign and Jose and the like to stay.
I’m sure Ashley would want that in order to sell season tickets.