da pinup bet： Cast your mind back to a cold Tuesday night at the beginning of December in 2010, as us football fans were just applying the last bit of tinsel onto our Christmas trees, we were interrupted by breaking news on Sky Sports News that Mike Ashley’s had sacked Chris Hughton only seven months after guiding the Toon back to the promise land. With Newcastle lying eleventh at the time, this certainly wasn’t expected by even the most cynical of Newcastle supporters.
da cassino online： Ashley’s reasoning at the time of the decision was that he was looking for a more experience manager to take the club forward. If we’re being honest, even Newcastle fans must not have been expecting that two days later that manager would have been Alan Pardew.
Looking back at the odds for the favourite to replace Hughton at the time, Martin O’Neill was odds on to take the mantle at St James’ Park (probably little did they know at the time that he is a closet Sunderland fan). The morning after Pardew’s appointment at St James’ Park, the headline from The Independent read ‘Newcastle fans dismayed by Alan Pardew’. In addition to this, Sky Sports conducted a poll in which only 6% of Newcastle fans said they would welcome the arrival of Pardew.
After failed spells at West Ham, Charlton and Southampton, the Newcastle job surely had to be his last if he wasn’t to succeed. Add to this the scepticism surrounding his appointment, Pardew had nothing to lose.
In his 22 months in charge at Newcastle, Pardew has approached the job like he had nothing to lose as nobody expected anything from him in the first place. His first game in charge was a 3-1 victory over Liverpool (who let’s not forget, were a more fearsome opponent than they are now). He also instigated 5-0 thrashing of West Ham that season which as a result, slowly but surely began to turn the Geordie faithful onside with him.
Pretty much everything went right for Pardew last season. After what happened at Newcastle several years ago where the club went through managers like Russell Brand goes through females, a fifth-placed finish last season was unimaginable. Signings such as Demba Ba, Yohan Cabaye and Papiss Cisse were inspired which surely Pardew must take credit for.
As a result Pardew won the LMA’s manager and Barclays manager of the year, the first Englishman to win both awards in one season. I watched a Newcastle game during the end of last season and heard the Newcastle fans chanting Pardew’s name. It was great because, at the moment, he is one of football’s great success stories at Newcastle United.
However, I do fear that his eight-year contract extension may be to his detriment. I worry that it finally gives Pardew something to lose. The key to the 51-year-old’s triumph is that he has thrived from people expecting him to fail.
His eight-year contract is a symbol of his success. But with this new era, comes a different sense of expectation. In fact, it just simply comes with an expectation. Sometimes being good at your job can lead to your own downfall as people start to wonder why you aren’t achieving the same high standards you set before?
Eight years has put a lot of unnecessary pressure on Pardew. It is as if the club have agreed to a marriage that the Newcastle fans don’t feel quite comfortable with. With problems lingering over Demba Ba’s future and a more inconsistent start to the campaign, where Pardew admits himself his side are struggling for a sense of rhythm, maybe the tide is beginning to turn for the worse for the Newcastle manager.
If things do start to go wrong within the next year at Newcastle, fans and pundits alike will cite that there’s six, seven more years to go of this.
To be fair to Pardew, Newcastle lie ninth, this isn’t a disaster. Newcastle fans will also remind me that during the course of last season they went on an incredible run. I just hope that eight years doesn’t spell the beginning of the end for Pardew.