Pardew: Mr.Mediocre overall.“Judge me on ten games” pleaded Alan Pardew as media and fans alike called for his silver head. It was only a matter of weeks ago, but it seems like a far away memory now.
Indeed, it has only taken half that many games to take Alan Pardew from the mire to the sunlit uplands of redemption. There have even been calls for the fans who doubted him to make a humble public apology to the great tactician after his sudden return to route one paid instant dividends, thrusting the Magpies to the giddy heights of eighth in the table at the time of writing.
Good or bad, of course it would just be silly to judge any manager on a mere 10 games as Pardew pleaded, or even five, especially a manager whose form is notorious for going up and down like a bride’s nightie. So, lets ignore Pardew’s appeal, move beyond the temporary peaks and troughs of Pardew’s mercurial fortunes and judge him over his full 176 games with the Magpies so far. Importantly, we can also compare his performance with that of previous managers of Newcastle United in the Premier League too. (more…)
NUFC: Riding the Route One road to success.You don’t even have to be a Newcastle United fan to notice that Alan Pardew and Newcastle United have done very well in their last four games, all wins with three against top sides Tottenham, Manchester City and Liverpool.
Credit where credit is due, Pardew and the team have gone some way at least to answering their critics in terms of results after a dismal start to the season. However, in studying the stats there is one fact which might cause a dilemma for some fans who advocate that Newcastle United should adopt a more passing style like the top clubs. The fact is that Pardew’s lighting fast turn of fortune rests on the exact opposite. What I mean is that after an effort to play like a modern passing side, an effort which brought him no wins in his first eight Premier League games, the Silver Fox has now found salvation through abruptly returning to his ‘route one’ roots, as you will be able to see in the evidence below.
First, to give some perspective, I will include the long ball percentage scale I devised a few years ago when I wrote a series of pieces revealing and monitoring Pardew’s long ball tactics at Newcastle. The references might be a little out of date as this was from the time when David Moyes was the manager of Everton and Tony Pulis was at Stoke.
Doh! I’ve lost again!Below you will find my final report for the 2012-13 season on Alan Pardew’s long balls.
It has been a long journey which started in the first few games of the season. Although Pardew has always been something of an old school “route one” manager, I noticed from watching the games early in the season against teams such as Aston Villa, Everton, Norwich and Reading that things started to get even worse this season, and my suspicions were confirmed when I found in my first report (made 11 games into the season) that with 17.7% of their total passes being over 25 yards, Newcastle were indeed the biggest long ball side in the Premier League, ahead of Reading, who were then managed by Pardew protege, Brian “long balls” McDermott.
As I made further reports, Newcastle United maintained their lead, until now. In true Pardew style however, the performance declined in the final stages and Pardew eventually lost out to the kings of “Route One” football, Tony Pulis’s Stoke City (yes, I know he’s gone now), who sneaked up on the back stretch, eventually claiming the title for this season with an overall long ball percentage of 16.2%. In the final countdown, Pardew’s Newcastle could manage third with 15.6%, with the aforementioned Reading sneaking back into second place with a long ball percentage of 15.7%. (more…)
