Is Alan Pardew in the running for the manager of the season award?
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Version 0 of 1. “It’s a game of two halves,” so the cliche goes, but this has been season of two very contrasting halves for Alan Pardew. Having spent the 2014 part of this campaign battling a passionate fan campaign calling for his head at Newcastle, he has returned to Selhurst Park and has quickly become a hero in south London. When he finally found a route out of St James’ Park and moved to Crystal Palace they were mired in the relegation zone, with 17 points taken from their opening 20 matches. He had already all but ensured Newcastle would at the very least be safe, in tenth place with 27 points and was thus looking at how high they might go rather than glancing over their shoulders. Eleven weeks later and this weekend Pardew’s Palace overtook Newcastle in the table after yet another hugely impressive win. They are now only four points from the hallowed 40-point mark so fans can begin thinking about another season in the top flight. Tony Pulis was the club’s saviour last season, bringing in an obvious gameplan and style of play that brought great success, but it wasn’t entirely clear how Pardew would try to improve the team. He made a number of signings, spending fairly significant amounts of money, but it wasn’t obvious that any of those provided a huge improvement in any particular position. Those widely held suspicions turned out to be well grounded. Pardew has instead extracted much more from the players already at the club. They have tightened up at the back, conceding 1.1 goals per Premier League game, compared to 1.5 before he came in while Neil Warnock was in charge, but the biggest improvements have been in attack. Palace are playing with a verve, pace and confidence with the ball that defies their position in the bottom half of the table. With things going the way they are, and with Pardew at the helm, they won’t be down there for much longer. Statistically, there have been some marked changes in Palace’s play. While pass success (69.4% up from 68%), proportion of passes played long (21.6% down from 22.2%) and final-third passes per game (64.4 compared to 64.5) have all remained largely constant, possession has soared to 44.7% under Pardew, up from 36.7%. He has instilled more confidence in the team and they feel comfortable keeping hold of the ball. Given the quality players they have in midfield and attack, it makes sense that they should have more of the ball than they did in the first part of the season. The most noticeable change in their play has been out wide, where Yannick Bolasie and Wilfried Zaha (who Pardew signed permanently in January but can hardly lay claim to) have flourished. With James McArthur, Joe Ledley and Mile Jedinak key in central areas and playing well, too, it did not seem that Bolasie – returning from the Africa Cup of Nations – would find a place in the team, but the emergence of Jason Puncheon as creator-in-chief in a central, No10 role has meant a spot for all three flair players behind a lone striker. Since Pardew took over, only David Silva (38) has created more chances in the Premier League than Puncheon (29), who is also second for assists in that time (four), behind only Santi Cazorla (five). Dribbles per game are down under Pardew (7.6 per game, down from nine) but shots per game have risen to 13.6 per game from 10.6. The likes of Puncheon and Ledley are clearly finding the wingers with balls into the channels between centre- and full-back, with crosses per game accordingly rising to 26.3 from 19.5. Palace are creating more chances and those are of higher quality; thus they are scoring 1.6 goals per game, up from one, with Glenn Murray the main beneficiary. Mile Jedinak is Palace’s highest-rated player according to our system (7.63). He has fared so well because of the sheer amount of work he does, averaging 3.5 tackles and 3.7 interceptions per game but, having missed much of Pardew’s reign due to the Asian Cup and then suspension, he may now struggle to find a way back into the team. His rating will have dragged his team’s average up to 6.76 pre-Pardew, but it speaks volume that, for the most part without their captain, the team’s rating has risen to 6.97 in recent months. They are a better unit now, more coherent both with and without that ball, with every member playing an important role. The improvement has been stark. After Pulis’s departure in the summer, one would hope that chairman Steve Parish will have learned from his mistakes and look to back Pardew in the transfer market during the off season. If they do that, there is no reason that the Eagles shouldn’t be looking at a top-half finish next season, though they could even achieve one of those yet sooner than that. Pardew, meanwhile, might well have managed to keep two teams in the Premier League in one season. He could be a candidate to follow Pulis as manager of the season. Premier League team of the week La Liga team of the week Bundesliga team of the week Serie A team of the week Ligue 1 team of the week All statistics courtesy of WhoScored.com, where you can find more stats, including live in-game data and unique player and team ratings. You can follow all the scores, statistics, live player and team ratings with the new free-to-download WhoScored app • Follow WhoScored on Twitter and Facebook• Follow Guardian Football on Facebook |