I blogged back in February about the poor state of Newcastle United, so on the eve of another dismal looking home fixture against Hull City, it's time to take stock of where we are now.
The summer seemed quite a positive time. For once, we did what I'd wanted us to do for a long time and sign our players in good time to let them have a good pre-season. We signed what I thought where some good players and for once, I was quite looking forward to the start of the season. Now that was unusual as over the past couple of seasons I'd just not had any confidence that we would do anything. I wasn't stupid enough to expect that we'd be heading for Champions League places or anything that daft ahead of this season, but I did thing that we had the fixtures and the team to have a really good start.
Sadly though, I couldn't have been more wrong as I'd neglected to remember that we still had Alan Pardew as a Manager. From having read my blog back from February again tonight, its pretty clear that nothing has really changed with the team, apart from getting new players to have the same sort of disjointed performances that we had last year.
Pardew's record in 2014 is truly abysmal, with only 5 wins in 20-odd games. It's relegation form at the very best and we've got the performances to match.
There's no doubt in my mind that Pardew has to go. The rot set in a long time ago, but his ridiculous contract tenure has made him almost unsackable due to the volume of compensation that he's due. I still feel that the year we got into Europe was a fluke and we had incredible luck in that season - I can still remember 4 or 5 games at home that we won with the toppest of top Man Utd-esque jam with some questionable decisions. Ever since then there's been a slide - Pardew is pretty clueless and the players as well as the rest of the Premier League have sussed him out. The last season contained some pretty stupid things that should have lead to Pardew's dismissal - his touchline indiscipline in pushing a referee's assistant, the comical insult of Manuel Pellegrino and then his very best, the headbutt on David Meyler. For me, the headbutt should have lead to his sacking and I suspect that Ashley could have crawled out of paying him his full contract value due to his gross misconduct.
But, it didn't happen & Pardew remains in charge.
So here we are again and the start to the season has been awful and people are calling for his head. We've had protests against Ashley and Pardew before, but the Sack Pardew website and campaign seems to be taking things to a different level. However, despite it sounding extremely well organised and I suspect, well funded, I'm still not convinced that it will achieve its aim. Ashley has made it pretty clear during his ownership of the club that he couldn't give a monkeys about what the fans think, feel or care about. All he's bothered about is the bottom line and whilst I can't really argue against the importance of cash, it does seem that the views of the people who pay into the club aren't taken into account at all.
Personally, I hate the idea of protests, especially during the match as I just think that its too much of a distraction to the players. However, what choice are the fans left with. I also feel that these mid-game protests just end up dividing the fans and we all end up arguing with each other which just makes the atmosphere in the ground worse. The passion level at St James Park has dropped dramatically over the past 18 months and I suspect even the fans have now been Pardewed, however, I think its just a sense of frustration and disillusionment that has hit us.
I'm not looking forward to tomorrow's game at all, yet Dominic can't wait. I think he feels that the Sack Pardew protest is going to hit home and have an impact. Maybe being older, wiser and a touch cynical makes me believe that its going to be another waste of time. I suspect it will get an awful lot of publicity and as usual with Newcastle United, for the wrong reason as it would be great to be recognised for what we've done on the pitch. Under Pardew though, that won't happen.
Only one man will decide whether Pardew stays or goes and it won't be a decision that he makes until there's a commercial reason for him to do so - it won't be down to protests, its going to be down to a combination of poor results and falling attendances. Ashley can't afford for us to go down again but how long does he give it before he pulls the trigger ? From a results perspective, if we get to 6 or 7 games and are still down amongst the dead men, with attendances falling, he may well pull the trigger. If you look at the Mackems last season, that's what they did with Gus and it still took them until the last 3 or 4 weeks before the end of the season to secure their safety. I don't want us to be in that position, especially as we have the players who should be performing far better than they are.
Don't get me wrong, I wish the Sack Pardew campaign all the luck in the world and I'll no doubt be joining in as I feel strongly that he shouldn't be Newcastle United's Manager, however, I still suspect that it won't have the desired result. I'm still hoping beyond hope that I'm wrong, but only time will tell.
#HowayTheLads
The summer seemed quite a positive time. For once, we did what I'd wanted us to do for a long time and sign our players in good time to let them have a good pre-season. We signed what I thought where some good players and for once, I was quite looking forward to the start of the season. Now that was unusual as over the past couple of seasons I'd just not had any confidence that we would do anything. I wasn't stupid enough to expect that we'd be heading for Champions League places or anything that daft ahead of this season, but I did thing that we had the fixtures and the team to have a really good start.
Sadly though, I couldn't have been more wrong as I'd neglected to remember that we still had Alan Pardew as a Manager. From having read my blog back from February again tonight, its pretty clear that nothing has really changed with the team, apart from getting new players to have the same sort of disjointed performances that we had last year.
Pardew's record in 2014 is truly abysmal, with only 5 wins in 20-odd games. It's relegation form at the very best and we've got the performances to match.
There's no doubt in my mind that Pardew has to go. The rot set in a long time ago, but his ridiculous contract tenure has made him almost unsackable due to the volume of compensation that he's due. I still feel that the year we got into Europe was a fluke and we had incredible luck in that season - I can still remember 4 or 5 games at home that we won with the toppest of top Man Utd-esque jam with some questionable decisions. Ever since then there's been a slide - Pardew is pretty clueless and the players as well as the rest of the Premier League have sussed him out. The last season contained some pretty stupid things that should have lead to Pardew's dismissal - his touchline indiscipline in pushing a referee's assistant, the comical insult of Manuel Pellegrino and then his very best, the headbutt on David Meyler. For me, the headbutt should have lead to his sacking and I suspect that Ashley could have crawled out of paying him his full contract value due to his gross misconduct.
But, it didn't happen & Pardew remains in charge.
So here we are again and the start to the season has been awful and people are calling for his head. We've had protests against Ashley and Pardew before, but the Sack Pardew website and campaign seems to be taking things to a different level. However, despite it sounding extremely well organised and I suspect, well funded, I'm still not convinced that it will achieve its aim. Ashley has made it pretty clear during his ownership of the club that he couldn't give a monkeys about what the fans think, feel or care about. All he's bothered about is the bottom line and whilst I can't really argue against the importance of cash, it does seem that the views of the people who pay into the club aren't taken into account at all.
Personally, I hate the idea of protests, especially during the match as I just think that its too much of a distraction to the players. However, what choice are the fans left with. I also feel that these mid-game protests just end up dividing the fans and we all end up arguing with each other which just makes the atmosphere in the ground worse. The passion level at St James Park has dropped dramatically over the past 18 months and I suspect even the fans have now been Pardewed, however, I think its just a sense of frustration and disillusionment that has hit us.
I'm not looking forward to tomorrow's game at all, yet Dominic can't wait. I think he feels that the Sack Pardew protest is going to hit home and have an impact. Maybe being older, wiser and a touch cynical makes me believe that its going to be another waste of time. I suspect it will get an awful lot of publicity and as usual with Newcastle United, for the wrong reason as it would be great to be recognised for what we've done on the pitch. Under Pardew though, that won't happen.
Only one man will decide whether Pardew stays or goes and it won't be a decision that he makes until there's a commercial reason for him to do so - it won't be down to protests, its going to be down to a combination of poor results and falling attendances. Ashley can't afford for us to go down again but how long does he give it before he pulls the trigger ? From a results perspective, if we get to 6 or 7 games and are still down amongst the dead men, with attendances falling, he may well pull the trigger. If you look at the Mackems last season, that's what they did with Gus and it still took them until the last 3 or 4 weeks before the end of the season to secure their safety. I don't want us to be in that position, especially as we have the players who should be performing far better than they are.
Don't get me wrong, I wish the Sack Pardew campaign all the luck in the world and I'll no doubt be joining in as I feel strongly that he shouldn't be Newcastle United's Manager, however, I still suspect that it won't have the desired result. I'm still hoping beyond hope that I'm wrong, but only time will tell.
#HowayTheLads
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