Alan Pardew has reportedly been told he has the next two league games to prove that he is the right man for the job.
Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley has grown impatient in waiting for the Magpies’ form to return to that of the first part of last season, but is now the right time to call time on The Englishman’s reign at St. James’ Park?
Newcastle are still without their first win in the Premier League so far this season and although the only game they’ve lost was versus Manchester City, The Toon failed to take the full points from Hull City and also Crystal Palace – where they took the lead in the 88th minute. Ashley was angered with Pardew’s decision to play five first-team players in the Capital One Cup game against Gillingham days before the Crystal Palace clash, as he felt this was to blame for them conceding a late equaliser.
There’s no doubting that in an ideal world for Pardew his side would have comfortably put The Tigers and The Eagles away, but if his side fail to win either of their next two fixtures, Pardew will have some explaining to do. I certainly understand Mike Ashley’s frustration as he must have been licking his lips when the fixture list was announced. Apart from the opening day clash with City, The Toon don’t have another tie against a top six side (from last season) until late October.
There’s therefore no reason why Ashley shouldn’t have expected that his side would be in the top six themselves come late October. Of course they still could be but they’ve already dropped four winnable points from two games. The owner is well within his rights to expect this level of performance after giving a generous £37m transfer budget for Pardew to use – the eighth largest budget in the Premier League.
The Magpies’ decline has come since the turn of the year and since 2014 began they’ve picked up only 18 points from a possible 66, so this is no rash decision to give an ultimatum to Pardew. I do however wonder why he was allowed to continue through pre-season and spend the large transfer budget if he was only going to be given a short period of time to get it right again? After all it’s only two years since the ex-West Ham boss signed an eight year contract with the club. Last year’s biggest overachievers Everton actually failed to pick up a victory in any of their opening three Premier League fixtures last year and of all those sides finished inside the bottom four! The Toffees still managed to finish fifth and that opening blip was a distant memory for supporters. Just a little bit of evidence that a disappointing start isn’t season defining.
I think that Mike Ashley really missed his chance to offload Pardew when things were on the downfall when he was involved in the head-butt incident with Hull City’s David Meyler. The owner stuck with him and now he has seemingly decided that he HAS had enough. Ashely doesn’t strike me as an owner who will hesitate to do what he thinks is right but now doesn’t seem the right time to do so. It’s both too late and too early to sack Pardew – the obvious time to end his reign of the Geordies was either post-head-butt or after the season was over, but now that he’s spent all of the club’s budget and after just three league matches, which Everton proved last season isn’t decisive, is a bizarre time to realise you now don’t want him.
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