He was red-hot favourite to get that job, and two of the FA panel came out early to say he was the over-whelming choice for the 14-man FA board … only for Roy Hodgson to get the job and the FA insisting “all 14 voted for him”.
Which is utter bollocks!
Pardew, in his relatively short time as manager, was a minute away from an FA Cup win until Steven Gerrard shattered his dream. So the parallel with Redknapp is similar.
So, why do we think Pardew is a better manager?
Former Toon goalkeeper Shaka Heslop will champion the Redknapp cause – we at NU-Mad will say why we believe Pardew is the worthy winner of ‘Manager Of The Year 2012’.
Shaka Hislop: “It’s hard to define what it is, but Harry has got it. He has that knack about him.
“I’ve heard people struggle to describe what makes him good, and to be honest, I’d probably struggle as much as anyone.
“But he has an ability to make you play like the player you think you are in your wildest dreams.”
NU-Mad: “Pardew is the first to say that Chris Hughton started the ‘Toon revolution’ when Newcastle were promoted, but it took a special kind of manager to step in (when I’m sure the majority of the players were perfectly happy with the manager they had) and push the team onwards.
“You could hardly see the join. Everything continued through that tough period as though the change had not been made. Then he pushed us on further.
“Making a player feel good about himself is an art-form, made even more difficult if the player(s) in question isn’t producing the goods. And no matter what Shaka says about Redknapp – there have been times when he has ‘murdered’ Luka Modric in the press for not producing the goods, or looking for a transfer.
“Have you ever known Pardew do that to a Newcastle player? James Perch, Mike Williamson, Leon Best and Danny Simpson have all had shaky periods during Pardew’s reign, but the Toon boss talks about them as though they are world-beaters, when we all know they are far from it.”
Shaka Hislop: “Harry is very persuasive. When he wanted to bring me to west Ham from Newcastle, Shay Given had come back into the team there, but I felt I had just started playing well for the first time in my career.
“Straight away Harry said ‘you’re the only one I want. I’m not looking for anyone else for West Ham.’
“That makes you feel appreciated. It makes you feel a better goalkeeper.
“Glenn Roeder came to West Ham and he bought David James. I ran into Harry at a charity event and he said: ‘if I was still at West Ham I wouldn’t have bought James because you are a better goalkeeper’.
“Now that was an England goalkeeper we are talking about. It makes you feel great about yourself, and I thought to myself, I’d love to play for him again.”
NU-Mad: “All well and good, but Harry thought so much about James – he signed him for Portsmouth!
“It’s ok signing big name players for a fashionable club like Spurs, when the attraction of London is always a pull to the foreign stars. But give Pardew praise for bringing them to Tyneside, where (as Tino Aspilla once told our fanzine) ‘there is no colder place in the world!’.
“Yes we have the fabulous support at St James’ Park, but as one current Newcastle player told us: ‘I don’t think a player really plays for the money or the fans, we play for a manager we respect. We believe he can bring us success.
“Yes you will always get the money-grabbers like Andy Carroll and Jose Enrique, but Spurs have had them too.”
Shaka Hislop: “The thing about Harry is he never dwells on a big defeat. He never pushes the panic button. A couple of days later it’s as though it never happened.”
NU-Mad: “And on that note – that is why we believe Pardew is the better manager. We are not trying to say Redknapp doesn’t care about his team – I’m sure he does – but following horror defeats for Newcastle … you just KNOW it hurts Pardew as much as the fans.
“He doesn’t laugh it off, the Redknapp way – he has that ‘Sir Alex’ look in his eyes that can turn you to stone. The Toon boss KNOWS it has happened … and he makes sure everyone else knows too.”
There is much more to talk about – tactics, ambition, an eye for a player, etc. And we will cover that next week.
Source: FOOTYMAD
