Alan Pardew - Poltroon sacked by a forrin team

[Happy Face 29]

I posted (so have evidence) that it was a good line up and the only change I would have made was Santon for Simpson.

 

We won 3-1 and missed a one on one.

 

Maybe I am some sort of genius, or more likely not just really, really negative?

 

Think you've missed the time stamp on my post.

[ChezGiven 0]

A few thoughts on Pardew's performance so far this year which i file under 'why management is not an algorithm'. I dont think anyone outside of NUFC is under any doubt whatsoever that he is one of the highest performing managers in England this season but thats as much to do with outside perceptions and expectations as it is with the actual quality of the coaching and team preparation. With a lot of people writing us off at the start of the season (certainly not me of course), then its easy to see why the current team placing brings a lot of credit to Pardew. The external narrative is at same time annoying and satisfying. Before yesterday's game, the Sky commentators position the two clubs as plucky little clubs that have managed to perform the quite astonishing acheivement of being promoted and cementing their place in the premiership. The fact that we lie 6th is therefore remarkable. It is but as others have noted, its highly annoying that a club with the 3rd highest support in the country, who has played in the champions league more than Spurs is talked about in terms more fitting for Reading or Southampton. Whilst annoying, it does mean that Pardew will be currently developing a reputation as one of the best english managers in the game. So, from the perspective of a Newcastle fan, is that fair?

 

There has been some considered and some ridiculous criticism of Pardew during this season but i think its fair to acknowledge when mistakes are made, games are approached incorrectly and things go wrong due to significant decisions or issues related to the manager's sphere of infuence. This is perfectly normal and healthy for any organisation to be reflective and critically appraise how it approaches its organisation and performance. There is a tendency in amongst this however, to lose perspective on what it all means, in my opinion. For example, the West Brom home game, Norwich away, Liverpool away, Wolves at home were all disappointing results, even some of the wins and draws came with less than impressive performances. Do all of these issues (performance or result) relate to failings of the manager? The considered response has to be no, otherwise you'd be saying the players perform the same way week after week, with no variation in their performance, the only variable is the managers intervention. This is clearly not the case, the true variable is a player's peformance and this is of course the manager's responsibility.

 

So what drives player performance and how does the manager enhance this as much as possible? For one, the manager needs to prepare the side tactically anticipating stengths and weaknesses in the opposition and the home side and drilling the players in terms of the likely movement and tactics of the opposition, he needs to select the right players, the right formation and send them out with this drilled into them. This is what games like Football Manager replicate, the algorithm of analytical management that can be performed by anyone with access to the tactical strengths and weaknesses of the two teams. This though has very little to do with how sportsmen across the spectrum in team games or athletics etc talk about 'performance'. A commonly cited driver of performance by athletes is whether they are in the 'zone', a mythical place where the mind is settled, relaxed, focussed, confident and feeding off performance. Whether you accept that as a key driver for footballer's peformance or not, my point is that the individual mind-set, the spirit of the player drives performance. It drives the difference between hitting the target or skying it over the bar, its the difference between weighting the ball perfectly or over-hitting it, the difference between collecting the ball and controlling it into a space where it is protected and it just running away from the player. How does a manager effect this and can he be expected to?

 

For me, this is more than 50% of the manager's job. Player's dont start with a blank canvass each week and need to be told how to play, the system of play is built up over time and of course needs to be tweaked along the way but as with us at the minute, all players in the senior squad should know their role in defence, turnover and attack in both the 4-4-2 and the 4-3-3 we have deployed. They'll work on some specifics during the week but come match day, the thing that drives everything is 'peformance' i.e the thing that separates Ben Arfa's contribution for 45 minutes at home against Chelsea and the 45 minutes he put in yesterday. Management, rather than just being some algorithmic FM programme concerning formations and tactics, is as much about giving players the platform to perform at their best as it is about methodical preparation and the right formation. I'm not downplaying the need to get that right and i would agree with those that say we have got that wrong on a few occassions but where we end up in the league this season is massively driven by the manager's ability to provide a platform for performance over 38 games. The level of performance is going to fluctuate, this driven as much by the fluctuating form of the opposition and their qualities as our own. If the manager can find the right mind-set amongst the players and get them committed, working hard and playing, on average, towards the top end of their potential peformance wise then (as long as he get the technical bit roughly right), the team will peform well on average.

 

its the 'average' which is important for me, its not a sprint playing in the premiership and the squad we have is not equipped to win every week. Some weeks, the peformance is a bit under where it should be and the opposition arrives and plays at the top of their potential. In these cases, its possible to lose a game you should (on paper) win. What matters is not the individual game but the long arc of performance over the season, the mindset of the players to deal with disappointment and endeavour to address poor peformances and disappointments from one week and deliver better the following week. The reason why the start of the season was not a 'blip'? The reason why after a poor run before christmas we lose key players but go on to get some fantastic results? The reason why the current poor streak has been turned around and we deliver the results we should do on paper?

 

Pardew.

[Anorthernsoul 1221]

Top post.

[Happy Face 29]

Lee Dixon was talking about playing for Wenger on MOTD. Along the same sort of lines of "the zone". It was what Wenger placed above all other things in his job, stringing a few results together would see a whole squad move into that winning mindset en masse. They're going through that now, the confidence bred by winning. An individual could misfire, a performance could be below par, but the belief and the drive to get it were his primary objective.

 

I don't think we've necessarily achieved that outside of a few games towards the end of the 11 game run early on, but we've ticked over nicely where we were too often the ones completely imploding. That's to Pardew's credit.

 

He'll be shitting himself we'll be without Cioloccini for a bit though.

[trophyshy 7073]

Good post Chez, it's pretty ridiculous if people are still not acknowledging he deserves credit. He also has the tricky task of upstream managing which cannot be overstated with our hierarchy. He seems to have a good relationship with them and crowbarred £10m out of them in January.

 

A few years of this progress would be nice. Hopefully Pardew's rising stock will signal buy just too late for England.

Edited March 26, 2012 by trophyshy

[ChezGiven 0]

There is a whole Pardew out campaign on NO, driven mainly by HTT but there are some significant critics. As i said, nothing wrong with a bit of criticism, its healthy tbh.

 

Two great additional points added there. He may secretly be shitting himself about losing Colo but i bet that he doesnt let that on in front of the players and he has given Perch the platform to put in some really good defensive performances for just this eventuality.

 

The upwards management is of course another bow to his string, navigating the internal environment at the club probably requires someone with a bit special mindset, not neccessarily a likeable one depending on your world view.

 

I've talked before about this being the backdrop to key players leaving and the team performance against this changing and challenging environment being a massive credit to him.

[Gemmill 44498]

HTT has always been a bit of a bell though tbf. One of the architects of the famous Hitzfeld dossier.

[Happy Face 29]

HTT has always been a bit of a bell though tbf. One of the architects of the famous Hitzfeld dossier.

 

Hitzfeld Toting Tit?

[Brock Manson 0]

Heil the toon.

[Kitman 2204]

HTT likes the sound of his own voice, metaphorically speaking. The idea of turfing out the man who's taken us to sixth is frankly ridiculous......not least the notion that Ashley/Llambias give a fuck about what people say on N-O, TT or any other message board.

[Baggio 0]

There is a whole Pardew out campaign on NO, driven mainly by HTT but there are some significant critics. As i said, nothing wrong with a bit of criticism, its healthy tbh.

 

Pardew's biggest problem this season is how much he's raised expectations, people have gone from being happy with a top 10 finish to moaning about the football not being great all of the time or how we're not putting fours and fives on teams like we did last season despite being sat in 6th.

 

I was reading N-O yesterday and there's a guy (Beran or something like that) who's critical of Pardew who came out and said the first half wasn't that great as we had a spell where West Brom came into it between the second and third goals, now the 2 things that went through my mind was this guy was a fucking idiot and that some people will never be happy.

 

I like Pardew, he tries some things on the pitch that I wouldn't and we've had patches where the football has been terrible but you've got to be realistic about things, for most of the season I think our football has been mixed up well rather than just hoof ball that some would have you believe, we're not the finished article either and there's still some more building to do in the summer which is why it amazes me that some over there think we are where we are in spite of Pardew even when we have some very average players kicking around the team.

 

They seem to be hung up on Bobby Robson too for some strange reason, they like to throw in what his opinion would have been, how he would have managed Ben Arfa to strengthen their point of view, makes me cringe to be honest.

Edited March 26, 2012 by Baggio

[Kid Dynamite 7009]

Top post.

 

regular as clockwork

[The Fish 10779]

There is a whole Pardew out campaign on NO, driven mainly by HTT but there are some significant critics. As i said, nothing wrong with a bit of criticism, its healthy tbh.

 

Two great additional points added there. He may secretly be shitting himself about losing Colo but i bet that he doesnt let that on in front of the players and he has given Perch the platform to put in some really good defensive performances for just this eventuality.

 

The upwards management is of course another bow to his string, navigating the internal environment at the club probably requires someone with a bit special mindset, not neccessarily a likeable one depending on your world view.

 

I've talked before about this being the backdrop to key players leaving and the team performance against this changing and challenging environment being a massive credit to him.

 

Despite the consensus that Williamson was awful, I'm sure I read Pardew saying that he'd done well and he was impressive. At first I thought "Were you watching the same match" and then I thought, perhaps he's being bullish to instil a player with some much needed confidence. The post I've quoted affirms the latter for me.

[Baggio 0]

Here's a list of our Premiership seasons points wise since the league changed to 20 teams.

 

 

95/96 - 78

96/97 - 68

97/98 - 44

98/99 - 46

99/00 - 52

00/01 - 51

01/02 - 71

02/03 - 69

03/04 - 56

04/05 - 44

05/06 - 58

06/07 - 46

07/08 - 43

08/09 - 34

10/11 - 46

11/12 - 50 so far

 

He's already bettered 9 seasons with 7 games still to go.

Edited April 2, 2012 by Baggio

[Park Life 71]

A few thoughts on Pardew's performance so far this year which i file under 'why management is not an algorithm'. I dont think anyone outside of NUFC is under any doubt whatsoever that he is one of the highest performing managers in England this season but thats as much to do with outside perceptions and expectations as it is with the actual quality of the coaching and team preparation. With a lot of people writing us off at the start of the season (certainly not me of course), then its easy to see why the current team placing brings a lot of credit to Pardew. The external narrative is at same time annoying and satisfying. Before yesterday's game, the Sky commentators position the two clubs as plucky little clubs that have managed to perform the quite astonishing acheivement of being promoted and cementing their place in the premiership. The fact that we lie 6th is therefore remarkable. It is but as others have noted, its highly annoying that a club with the 3rd highest support in the country, who has played in the champions league more than Spurs is talked about in terms more fitting for Reading or Southampton. Whilst annoying, it does mean that Pardew will be currently developing a reputation as one of the best english managers in the game. So, from the perspective of a Newcastle fan, is that fair?

 

There has been some considered and some ridiculous criticism of Pardew during this season but i think its fair to acknowledge when mistakes are made, games are approached incorrectly and things go wrong due to significant decisions or issues related to the manager's sphere of infuence. This is perfectly normal and healthy for any organisation to be reflective and critically appraise how it approaches its organisation and performance. There is a tendency in amongst this however, to lose perspective on what it all means, in my opinion. For example, the West Brom home game, Norwich away, Liverpool away, Wolves at home were all disappointing results, even some of the wins and draws came with less than impressive performances. Do all of these issues (performance or result) relate to failings of the manager? The considered response has to be no, otherwise you'd be saying the players perform the same way week after week, with no variation in their performance, the only variable is the managers intervention. This is clearly not the case, the true variable is a player's peformance and this is of course the manager's responsibility.

 

So what drives player performance and how does the manager enhance this as much as possible? For one, the manager needs to prepare the side tactically anticipating stengths and weaknesses in the opposition and the home side and drilling the players in terms of the likely movement and tactics of the opposition, he needs to select the right players, the right formation and send them out with this drilled into them. This is what games like Football Manager replicate, the algorithm of analytical management that can be performed by anyone with access to the tactical strengths and weaknesses of the two teams. This though has very little to do with how sportsmen across the spectrum in team games or athletics etc talk about 'performance'. A commonly cited driver of performance by athletes is whether they are in the 'zone', a mythical place where the mind is settled, relaxed, focussed, confident and feeding off performance. Whether you accept that as a key driver for footballer's peformance or not, my point is that the individual mind-set, the spirit of the player drives performance. It drives the difference between hitting the target or skying it over the bar, its the difference between weighting the ball perfectly or over-hitting it, the difference between collecting the ball and controlling it into a space where it is protected and it just running away from the player. How does a manager effect this and can he be expected to?

 

For me, this is more than 50% of the manager's job. Player's dont start with a blank canvass each week and need to be told how to play, the system of play is built up over time and of course needs to be tweaked along the way but as with us at the minute, all players in the senior squad should know their role in defence, turnover and attack in both the 4-4-2 and the 4-3-3 we have deployed. They'll work on some specifics during the week but come match day, the thing that drives everything is 'peformance' i.e the thing that separates Ben Arfa's contribution for 45 minutes at home against Chelsea and the 45 minutes he put in yesterday. Management, rather than just being some algorithmic FM programme concerning formations and tactics, is as much about giving players the platform to perform at their best as it is about methodical preparation and the right formation. I'm not downplaying the need to get that right and i would agree with those that say we have got that wrong on a few occassions but where we end up in the league this season is massively driven by the manager's ability to provide a platform for performance over 38 games. The level of performance is going to fluctuate, this driven as much by the fluctuating form of the opposition and their qualities as our own. If the manager can find the right mind-set amongst the players and get them committed, working hard and playing, on average, towards the top end of their potential peformance wise then (as long as he get the technical bit roughly right), the team will peform well on average.

 

its the 'average' which is important for me, its not a sprint playing in the premiership and the squad we have is not equipped to win every week. Some weeks, the peformance is a bit under where it should be and the opposition arrives and plays at the top of their potential. In these cases, its possible to lose a game you should (on paper) win. What matters is not the individual game but the long arc of performance over the season, the mindset of the players to deal with disappointment and endeavour to address poor peformances and disappointments from one week and deliver better the following week. The reason why the start of the season was not a 'blip'? The reason why after a poor run before christmas we lose key players but go on to get some fantastic results? The reason why the current poor streak has been turned around and we deliver the results we should do on paper?

 

Pardew.

 

Reminds me of the old days when we (Alex, Kitman, Nicos) used to write editorial for the NO front page.

[Ayatollah Hermione 13837]

With regards to that tit saying our first half performance wasn't very good because West Brom had a couple of chances, some people don't realise that there's two teams out there. They think it's entirely possible to control a game of football because you can on FIFA. Other sides are going to create, especially when they're the home side. You have to make sure they only create half-chances and play your pressuring and defensive game well.

 

Of course, that kid is just thick but I've seen it a bit this season. Whenever we have a dodgy result, it's always 100% our fault, rather than other sides playing well. Not that I'm saying we're totally blameless.

[StevenL 0]

You're right like, even when teams are being battered 5 - 0 they still have a few cracks at goal. You can't dominate for 100% of the game.

[Kitman 2204]

[Reminds me of the old days when we (Alex, Kitman, Nicos) used to write editorial for the NO front page.

 

[JawD 99]

Talk Sport interview with Pars this morning http://www.talksport.co.uk/sports-news/football/premier-league/120402/exclusive-pardew-carroll-move-proves-grass-isnt-always-greener-168573

[Happy Face 29]

HF clearly mortal complaining about Jonas playing LB when the lad got MOTM.

 

Whoever came up with that was daft when yaya perch was a class apart.

 

if its a new tactical preference in which Jonas and the team shine then we'll see it continue.

 

 

Still preferred to RTaylor, Ferguson and Santon.

[Tooj 17]

Spot on the last two games! We look loads better. Fair play to him for that.

[Monroe Transfer 0]

Never thought I'd see the day ^

[rogerbarton 24]

I still don't understand what was going through his mind a few weeks ago with the hoofball, even when we had all these players back at our disposal vs. Wolves (what an appalling result that seems in hindsight) and first half vs mackems, but clearly Ben Arfa's introduction in that game showed up how much better we are with the ball on the floor and he seems to have found something that really works.

[Lake Bells tits 1]

I was very critical of pardew during the hoof wars early 2012, he seems to have rectified this - well done on him.

We have seen glimpses earlier whenever Ben Arfa had cameos though, we instantly start to play better fotball.

I still think we should have played ben arfa every week ( even if just for 1 half) from september/october on, and noone will convince me otherwise. Its criminal to have him warm the bench.

[ChezGiven 0]

Early 2012 when we played Man U off the park.