Apparently at the game against Cardiff City tomorrow, there is a planned protest from Newcastle supporters to show their discontent at their side’s recent slide in performances and place in the table. Newcastle FC are currently lying in 9th place in the table, 8 points behind Southampton in 8th and 2 points ahead of 10th placed Stoke City. Currently the results recently have been awful for Newcastle as they haven’t won since the 22nd March against Crystal Palace, that’s now 6 weeks straight of losses.
It obviously very frustrating to watch your team week after week to descend at such a rate, but is it all Pardew’s fault? It’s his job to create good morale and have a team that at a minimum will turn up and perform on the pitch, but when expectation is unfairly high on a team that lost a high quality player in January with Cabaye, it is never going to be easy, as seen from the fact they have only won 3 times since January.
A manager’s job is difficult, but it must be next to impossible when you lose your main playmaker, plus to not have the players to fall back on due to lack of funds and failed transfer windows, and most importantly several players in the Newcastle Shirt that haven’t been taking the mantel of responsibility. I’m talking about Cisse and his major goal scoring drought that is a stark contrast to his explosive impact he had on the league last season, and the star quality in Ben Arfa not being seen enough, due to disagreements off the pitch but also his consistency when he does play. If he doesn’t have the team, it’s hard to get positives going again until after the summer. (If they don’t sack him first)
Pardew has become one of the longest serving managers in the Premier League, behind Wenger, and if the pressure continues, it doesn’t look like he’s going to stay there much longer.
What I want to ask is, “where do the Magpies think they should be?”
They aren’t up to the quality of Southampton or Everton and they’re not going to get relegated. With the small squad they currently have, this is where they should be and with some faith and money spent in the summer they might, just might be able to push up the table again and be able to see their side win again.
Currently with the few games remaining Pardew deserves to finish the season and the time to leave a year of rumours and troubles behind them. Let him get on with being a manager, the fans should just concentrate on supporting the team, to boost morale and just sing the roof off tomorrow! It would help the players and the management to finish the season as best as possible.
It’s so rare to see a manager and a team survive a troubled part of the season. There are no lessons learnt from these moments in a season, as the players know if they don’t perform it doesn’t matter as before anything can be done about their future, the boss has lost his job. And for managers they lose the ability and knowledge to be able to get out of such sticky situations for the future and it becomes cyclical. Newcastle aren’t going to be relegated this season, so they should let Pardew gain the chance to learn from this season, and hopefully next season will be much improved.
Source: DSG
