"It's all your fault!"It’s time for the long awaited second installment of this series looking at Alan Pardew’s role at the club, and if he know what he’s doing? (Hence the title). Because of recent events, I have decided to do a piece on his tendency to blame all and sundry other than himself for some disappointing performances this season so far.
Part II: Playing the Blame Game
Because of all the success we had last season, anything that went slightly awry, (and there were many of them, but that’s for another day/blog) became difficult to criticise. Fans seemed to soften their opinions towards the fat man and Casino Derek (or at least turn them down to avoid derision from more optimistic supporters), and why wouldn’t they? The team was doing well and we looked like we had found stability and a vision for going forward into the future. This season however has been a different story.
The optimism gained from 11/12 was slowly eroded away, even the most committed Pardew apologists have doubts in their minds and most people now feel that he has overstayed his welcome. This deterioration in confidence doesn’t only effect the fans but also the players, the owners, but most importantly the manager. In an effort to avoid coming to terms with the reasons why his Newcastle career has gone so far downhill, Pardew now almost routinely blames different elements of the organisation (or at least ones that don’t have the platform to fight back) game to game. (more…)
A curse or a blessing?Well not if your surname is “Ferguson,” “Wenger” or “Mourinho” perhaps, but for most, if not quite all of the others who won the award, it has seemingly been a ticket to disaster, despair, and possibly permanent career oblivion, or at least a prelude to a big dent in the manager’s CV.
In this story, I will take a look at many of the previous winners for whom the award seemed to be more of a curse than a blessing. So, lets take a look at the prevous victims of the curse, and also ask if Newcastle United’s very own Silver Supremo, Alan Pardew, might be another one.
Kenny Dalglish (Premier League Manager of the Season 1994–95).
When Kenny Dalglish won the Premier League “Manager of the Season” award for 1994-5, he was the golden boy of the football management world, just as he had been as a player in the years before that. With a little help from his most illustrious predecessor Bob Paisley, he had won three league titles, two FA Cup titles and four Charity Shields as manager of Liverpool. Moving on to Blackburn Rovers, he then took them to promotion, and even the 1994-5 Premiership title in their third Premiership campaign and it was for this that he received his award. (more…)
A recent sighting of the currently missing Toon Top Dog.It’s always intrigued me how individual NUFC fans see their club’s relationship with our eternal rivals down the road.
I mean we all chant ‘we hate Sunderland’ on match days but does the rivalry mean different things to fans living where they hardly ever come across the great unwashed such as the North bank of the Tyne or in the Milan area for instance; to people like myself who live on the proverbial front line in South Tyneside?
Not only is my local area positively crawling with them, I also had the great misfortune of attending the University of Sunderland (which ironically very few Mackems attend as they have little concept of higher education) the high point being me and my mate walking across the queermouth bridge the day after the 5-1 derby with Newcastle tops on. Yes, we received a good mixture of cheers and death threats. So, as you can see I’ve had more than my fair share of exposure in recent times.
The more you interact with the other side, the more you get to see they will point to anything that indicates the Sunderland are superior to Newcastle in some way. Maybe its their endemic selective memories kicking in again or maybe, just maybe, its the fact that as of Saturday they are now 4 points ahead of us in the Premier League. My question is that while it’s obviously important to be successful as a club and attempt to win trophies; but is it also important to get ahead of and finish above Sunderland as well, or would many be happy to just take six points off them every season? (more…)
“‘Phenomenal’ was all a breathless Fred Rutten (Vitesse Arnhem’s manager) could say. A word so rarely uttered in the Eredivisie it took many by surprise. Phenomenal you say? In truth no other superlative could do justice to the display of incredible forward play he had the pleasure of witnessing from one of European footballs most in form strikers. Wilfried Bony.”
Vitesse Arnhem’s 24 year old muscled magician, Wilfried “Daddy Cool” Bony is currently the Eredivisie’s highest scorer and with very good reason. Cheick Tiote’s Ivory Coast team mate is now seen as a natural successor to Didier Drogba with his great strength, dynamism, hold-up play, aerial threat, great finishing abilty and importantly, superb techinique on the ball – He also has a good injury history too. (more…)
Laurent Blanc: Why not?Many thanks to “ToonBano” from the Toon blog www.toonbano.com for his fifth guest blog here – wt.
Apologies for the sensationalist headline but bear with me there’s a point to it. My patience with Alan Pardew has been down to a thread for most of this season (just have a little look in my archive section to see the proof), but since that Brighton humiliation the thread has snapped. For good. The man is totally incompetent at his role and how he manages to get away with it without any real criticism in the footballing world is astonishing. His greatest talent is being soaked in Teflon it seems.
To the eye of the realistic, honest and well informed Newcastle United supporter, his incompetence does not go unnoticed however. In fact, it drives us up the wall! When you look at every aspect of the Newcastle Utd managers responsibilities he holds, it is quite reasonable to say that the one we have in place has failed at almost every single one of them. I’ll name a few and you decide whether he gets a ‘pass’ or a ‘fail’: (more…)
