Alan Pardew feels heat but manager is only part of Newcastle’s problem

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/sep/15/alan-pardew-newcastle-united-mike-ashley

Version 0 of 1.

The pathetic weekend surrender at Southampton has enraged Newcastle United fans already so hoarse from calling for their manager’s head they have taken to daubing bed sheets with slogans in an effort to rest their vocal chords. Having been appointed by the club’s owner, Mike Ashley, in December 2010, Alan Pardew is the Premier League’s second-longest serving manager and has, rather remarkably considering his fairly average record, been sacked only three times – by West Ham, Charlton and Southampton – in a football management career that spans 15 years of almost continuous employment.

Speculation abounds that this week he may be handed his P45 for a fourth time, although his employer and friend Ashley has remained customarily reticent about the future of the man he rewarded with an eight-year contract two years ago following Newcastle’s fifth-place finish in the 2011-12 season. According to the Newcastle fan website True Faith, stewarded by the heroically stoic but increasingly depressed Michael Martin, rumours on Tyneside suggest that Newcastle’s fifth place actually angered Ashley, as qualification for the Europa League meant his thinly spread squad would have to endure additional hassle for precious little financial reward. “Ashley, it is understood, hit the roof,” claimed Martin, in the latest of a long line of angry editorials written as Pardew’s uninspired side have stumbled, lurched and long-balled their way to 16 Premier League defeats out of 24 matches played since the turn of the year.

Although Ashley has unsurprisingly given no indication what the short-term future holds for a lightning rod who provides the handy dual function of propagandist and St James’ Park ire-absorber, it seems that Pardew will take his place in the dugout for Saturday’s home match against Hull City. Should he be brave or foolhardy enough to venture into his technical area, he will be greeted with an understandably mutinous and toxic reception. The patience of Newcastle fans has long since evaporated and things could turn very ugly indeed. At Southampton, one travelling fan had to be restrained by stewards as he attempted to make his way over to Pardew for a frank exchange of post-match views, while before the match the assistant manager, John Carver, was seen confronting supporters who had celebrated the end of a 323-mile journey to see their team get hammered by unfurling a “Sack Pardew” banner.

Anyone who has been following events at St James’ Park with even passing interest will be aware that Pardew is only part of the problem at a club owned by a businessman for whom the bottom line means everything and the height of ambition, apart from perhaps eventually selling up and buying Rangers (if this is indeed his ultimate ambition), appears to be avoiding relegation from the Premier League and qualification for the Europa League.

Such is Ashley’s unpredictability, it would come as no huge surprise if Pardew was rewarded for Newcastle’s latest hideous defeat with another eight years at the helm. If he is shown the door in the face of relentless unrest, it is difficult to imagine who among those being touted to replace him would want to perform the role of public stooge or patsy for a chairman with so little ambition.

Short of dire personal financial necessity, the job has little to recommend it. Steve Bruce and Ronald Koeman have both been mooted as successors to Pardew but it is hard to see either man swapping his position at a vibrant club for a similar one at a giant that is not so much sleeping as comatose and being drip-fed a steady stream of sedative from the boardroom down.

David Moyes and Tim Sherwood have also been mentioned but it is difficult to see Moyes performing the role of willing patsy for anyone, while a spell as part of the Ashley regime could hamstring the undeniably enthusiastic Sherwood’s managerial career before it has really begun. It’s probably no exaggeration that an out-of-work manager would have to be fairly desperate to work for a ludicrously unpopular chairman blessed with an almost heroic disregard for the thoughts and opinions of the put-upon supporters who file through the turnstiles of his stadium from game to game. Whisper it, but in the event of Pardew’s dismissal this could be just the job for one Malky Mackay.