Pardew: I’ve let NUFC down

Alan Pardew has taken it upon himself to shoulder the blame for the 4-0 defeat to Wigan at the weekend.

Personally I think it’s wrong for him to do it as the players deserve their fair share of the blame for their inept first half performance. Just my opinion of course.

Perhaps it’s a motivational thing heading to Stamford Bridge tomorrow evening? Maybe Pardew is trying to be clever apportioning blame pretty much to himself? We’ve seen it happen before, most notably after the 5-0 defeat to Spurs earlier on in the season, so perhaps he is trying it again?

“It was a bad day at the office, but for reasons,” he told The Journal. “I think part of the psychology was that, with all due respect to Wigan, it was them we were playing and not Chelsea that was three days around the corner.”

“I’m not attributing any kind of blame here, I’m just saying that collectively we all got it wrong. The psychology of the team and the tactical side of things is my responsibility, and I felt that I let the club down a little bit as well. On Wednesday, I have to make sure I don’t get that wrong.”

“The only thing I worry about in terms of Wednesday night is making sure that my team is motivated at the right level. That will probably mean bringing them down rather than building them up, like I was trying to do on Saturday.”

“I don’t think we’re under any illusions. Tactically, we made mistakes as a coaching team and myself. I think the psychology didn’t work for us and, with no disrespect to Wigan, the performance they put in was probably above themselves”

“All those factors resulted in that result, and we all take responsibility for it. Therefore, we all need to make the same response on Wednesday night.”

Perhaps this is the kick in the backside the players needed? If they play anything like they did in the first half against Wigan at Stamford Bridge they will be on the end of a hammering which I am sure they will all want to avoid.

It seems to me though as if the players have got off lightly, and I’m not a huge fan of that. They take the plaudits when things are going well so should be prepared to, as they say, take the rough with the smooth.

A manager can only do so much in the build up to the match, but he can do nothing about individual errors or poor performance on the pitch. Well, he can, but only three subs are allowed remember, which poses a problem when virtually of the team are playing poorly!

Has Alan Pardew let NUFC down? Not for me…

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

54 thoughts on “Pardew: I’ve let NUFC down

  1. We may need to get Troy to call Pardew and have him explain how simple a game of football is. Then Pardew won’t make these kinds of mistakes in the future 🙂 🙂

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  2. I think Pards is letting the players off lightly, there is no excuse for their 1st half performance.
    I for one don’t expect our players to be the best in the world but I expect them to put in 100% and they didn’t do that.
    It was prove to me that after Pards ripped into them at halftime they were able to up their workrate and give alot more in the 2nd half.

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  3. Agree with Dave… I’m sure the leadership group within the team are shouldering the blame behind the scenes but publicly Pardew is doing his bit..

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  4. Sorry but I think he’s right to place blame on himself. He messed about with the formation in a game which out of the 4 remaining was the most winnable…

    I seen Stardust mention the same thing in one of the other posts about this game and he was shot down. Sorry but he was 100% right. Yes maybe the players didn’t play as well as they could have but to chuck them on using a totally different untested formation was suicide.

    Our season has been built upon stability and reliance of a regular back 4 who have always known what their roles are, Saturday chucked that completely out of the window.

    The 4-3-3 has been a success because I believe it had been tried in training for months before trying it in an actual match. I think Cisse was brought in deliberately for this reason and HBA left out until this formation could be incorporated.

    I just don’t see how the majority on here can’t criticise Pardew when he had ****** up, the sun doesn’t ‘actually’ shine out of his **** you know.

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  5. Evil, I see what you are saying but you are talking about intelligent individuals here.. to say that a simple formation change totally bamboozled them is ridiculous.. They would work on many different formations during training, its not as if Pardew sprung it on em the morning of the game… they came out half cocked and got punished.. end of story..

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  6. Evilfranky-He didn’t “chuck them on” with an untested formation. In fact we started the game in the same 4-3-3 as we’ve been playing for weeks. Result? We were 2-0 down after 20 odd minutes. Then he changed it, not that it worked, but presumably to try and change things up/make it easier for the players? Okay it didn’t work, but if you’re players aren’t trying it doesn’t matter what formation you play…

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  7. EF – Also the sun doesn’t actually shine out of the players arses either you know.

    You bang on about the formation if you like, but tell me a few things.

    1 – What formation would stop Mike Williamson being outjumped by a bloke who is about a foot shorter than him?

    2 – What formation would stop the 4th goal, the 30 yarder from Di Santo?

    3 – What formation would allow Danny Simpson to actually try and tackle Maloney rather than just backing off and letting him get into a shooting position?

    4 – What formation would stop Colo slipping on his **** when trying to clear a ball only for it to fall straight to a Wigan player?

    The nuts of it is that individual and collective errors cost us. That is a player issue, not a formation or tactics issue

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  8. I think he is right in a way though.

    The players had the ability and confidence going into the game so what was wrong? The mentality. And that’s Pardew and the coaching staff job, they can’t kick the ball for them

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  9. Moreno – I agree. Motivation was an issue, which is part of Pardew’s
    job, but then why do we have a Captain?

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  10. Big Dave
    May 1, 2012 at 10:14

    “I for one don’t expect our players to be the best in the world but I expect them to put in 100% and they didn’t do that.
    It was prove to me that after Pards ripped into them at halftime they were able to up their workrate and give alot more in the 2nd half.”

    I agree with this!

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  11. I agree fully with EvilFranky

    Pards must shoulder the entire blame.

    I once asked why would a team buy a player for his obvious qualities and then try to change him to fit into their team? Doesnt make sense.

    Why would Pardew, having won the last 6 games, change format?

    It takes a certain amount of arrogance to think that with only a couple of days on the training ground he could go out and take on Wigan at their own game, when they’ve been doing it for months.

    At one point in the first half we had Santon playing on the right and he obviously didn’t have a clue what he was supposed to be doing.

    Terrible tactical decision. Wigan should have been 3 points

    Worst tactical move since Bin Laden said “I’m sick of hiding out in caves in Afghanistan – lets go get us a house in the suburbs, where we can at least get a pizza delivered”

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  12. I like the fact he said ‘talking them down, rather than up’. For the first time all season it seemed he was bigging the players up all week for reasons unbeknown to me.

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  13. I think you get different types of captains though, Colo is the sort he leads by example rather than getting in the players faces and giving them a bollocking. Sometimes a good **** kicking can change a mentality and I think, although he is outstanding, his lack of vocals to his team mates is one of his down points.

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  14. I guess i’ll go for the middle ground again…We can only really speculate about what goes on in the training ground/what tactical thinking went into the match, I get the feeling maybe Pardew did underestimate Wigan on a tactical level as we didn’t seem to have a plan to counter their threat, i’m not sure whether that 3-4-3 was thought up in case of emergency, if it was obviously it didn’t solve much…And maybe you could also say Pards didn’t motivate the players properly?

    Still I’d have to agree that most of the blame has to go on the players. At the end of the day tactics don’t mean much if the players just won’t perform. People saying we should have changed our game before the match-why? We’ve played every team in all the wins at our game, Swansea was a good point at *adapting*-let them have possession, cut them apart at the counter, we were probably planning on something similar i.e quick counters at their back 3-indeed we looked very good/went close a couple of times when we did, but Wigan actually play incisive football and cause problems, unlike Swansea…..

    Not one of the players looked up for it, and once we were 2-0 down so quickly a hammering was always on the cards because this team just seems so fragile. You could blame Pardew for picking the team? Picking the captain? But what choice does he have? Colo is our no.1 defender and the only one who could really captain the side.

    I just hope he hasn’t let the players get off that lightly behind closed doors, don’t want to see another performance like that again…

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  15. I wouldn’t say Pards should shoulder the entire blame though :/

    And particularly disagree with ‘I just don’t see how the majority on here can’t criticise Pardew when he had ****** up, the sun doesn’t ‘actually’ shine out of his **** you know.’

    I just think that at this stage of the season most of us have a great deal of perspective and aren’t ready to totally lynch someone who has been nothing short of magnificent for us.

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  16. Do people actually have eyes? We started off with THE SAME formation but changed when we were getting ripped a new arsehole having conceded two goals in three minutes with the aforementioned formation.

    No wonder most modern day players are ****** when you get fans still idolising them for playing **** 🙄

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  17. A manager I had once told me that he would always bring me back down when I was flying and raise me up when I was down, the art of good management he believed.

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  18. The only thing Pards can be criticised on is motivation and even then this isn’t bloody football manager where one phrase turns a team into winners. These are highly paid professionals-sure words do need to be said (they worked well enough at half time) but there’s no excuse for these players to collectively not turn up.

    Its crazy how reliant we are on Colo really. If he has a blinder we basically always win. When he’s not having a good one (not saying all the mistakes are his) then literally the whole team collapses. Madness. 😯

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  19. Anyone that has played any competitive sport knows that you have days that you wish you stayed in bed. There is no motivational speech that can be delivered that can change the outcome of “one of those days” Thankfully it hasn’t happened too often this season.. we have had players that are down but not the whole team.. There is no simply fix for a game like the one against Wigan..

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  20. I’m with you Toonsy…there is no point puting too many facts in your posts mate…it seems there are deeper more sinister reasons for our poor performance.. 🙂

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  21. We were all over the place from the start.

    It was like musical chairs out there.

    When a defender is doing something he’s not used to or not comfortable with the results can be disastrous.

    Enrique and Colo took a couple of years to settle. As did Williamson. We’ve just spent the last year drilling into Santon how to show them down the left wing then put him on the right?
    Can hardly be natural for him.

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  22. The players played poorly. Simple as. I think Pards got it wrong switching tactics so early , if we stayed 433 maybe we would of nicked one before half time , maybe not. But I like the fact Pardew comes out and protects his players like this, I dont think many managers can be entirely blameless after a 4-0 defeat but I think the players should get the higher proporation of blame.

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  23. Evilfrankie how do you work out that we played different tactics when we started with the same setup that won us the games before Wigan ??
    Fyi I don’t think the sunshines outta Pards *** and I believe that he has to shoulder some of the blame, but what your trying to do is put all the blame on Pards, which imo is just giving the highly skilled millionaire players an excuse and a good reason to not worry about giving their all again, because its not there fault its all Pardews fault 🙄

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  24. Moreno – I once had a manager that said to me.. pull your finger out you slack little ****! He was a nuturing individual… 🙂

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  25. Off topic, just watching the Shola cribs again. he is so boring like the way he goes on!

    “I love wearing hats, lots of shapes and sizes of hats that I love wearing, just different sizes and colours really”

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  26. I’m agreeing with Toonsy here – the players were too complacent. We’ve won six in a row and all we have to do is play our stuff. Did none of them think, hang on here, this is a desperate team we’re playing and one in good form, at home?
    I was especially disappointed in Tiote. After the second went in his head was down and he totally lost heart, casually walking back when they were lining up the fourth. Saw it at Liverpool and Spurs. For a so called hard man he’s a bit soft!

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  27. The industry I work in uses a Safety Management System.

    Consider your goal as being protected by a huge block of swiss cheese.

    None of the holes go all the way through so they cant score.

    Slice the cheese.

    Every “abnormality” or **** up moves a slice of cheese, bringing the holes in 2 adjacent slices into line.

    Once all the holes are in line, they score.

    Various events can move a slice of the cheese, whether its Colo not playing well, Ben Arfa giving the ball away in midfield, or Tim Krul wanting to fart. Think multi level Butterfly Effect.

    Formation can certainly have the effect of moving at least one slice.

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  28. I would have been pissed off if we failed to beat bolton after he needlessly changed back to 4-4-2 and like many other matches earlier in the season were outnumbered in the centre and strugged to retain possession.

    But i cant fault the tactics this week starting with the 4-3-3 that has worked so well and then trying to match up with wigan to stem the tide made sense to me.

    One thing i will criticise him for is not seriously bollocking players for not stopping crosses, If Santon and williamson had closed down the wingers for the first two goals neither would have gone in, We would have got a foothold and IMHO would have gone on and won the match…

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  29. CC – I like Santon but he was twenty yards from his winger for the first goal cross. Simpson and Willo are disasters just waiting to happen. But really it was all about attitude at Wigan and Pardew should share the blame. We should have been ready for an early onslaught.

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  30. Him taking the blame is brilliant man management. If he is too quick to shift the blame onto the players there is a risk of them becoming demotivated, no i don’t think he was to blame, but i think this may well help in getting a performance on Wednesday!

    HWTL!

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  31. My view of it:

    We played ****. We got hammered.

    Thats it. Last time it happened against Spurs we picked ourselves up, and hopefully we can do it again. Against Wigan, most of the team had a day to forget, not just one or two, but most of the team. Saying that, we still could have had 3 or more goals, and that shows we have some quality.

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  32. AMF @ 27,think the guy was spot on me-sel,but did you take any notice thats the thing 😀 😀

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  33. imo 90% players to blame we lacked a player on field who could kick ***,so 10% is down to pardew for not kicking *** before they crossed that white line,taylor has been a miss in this respect they took the field thinking this game was a touch easy once your 2 down with that mind-set theres no way back as players start looking at each other for someone to blame,but move on lets see what next game bring one thing for sure they wont have that same mind-set,hopefully

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  34. Ice, my manager normally finished his crack at me with “are you listening” so you tell me 🙂 🙂

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  35. Archie-I know what you’re saying about tactics and yes in certain cases they can be the difference between victory and defeat. Fulham away is a good example, we were completely out thought after we had started comfortably and then collapsed in due course.

    But my main point and the point others are making (I think) is that you can have the greatest tactical plan out there but if your players don’t fancy giving it a go then you’ll get nowhere. Maybe tactics did play a part-and I may well have been more critical of them if we were ineffective and lost say 2-1. Fact is though they just completely scythed through us, mainly because people were having an off day/couldn’t actually be bothered.

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  36. It was one of those games where nothing went right, they put away every decent chance and we hit the frame a few times and couldn’t even get a consolation. Move on now it’s finished and we sort them out next season.

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  37. Repost from last article on tomoz’s match not being on sky 😡
    Will have to try one of those sites you guys use then 👿 . First time, are they any good? Mum’n dad’ll be out (wedding anniversary 🙄 ) so won’t get in trouble 😈 .

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  38. I’m pretty sure that the blame allocation in public is very different from what happens in private. Players will have been bollocked.

    Also, let’s keep a perspective on this: there are reasons why we’ve not seen 7 wins in a row in over 15 years. The psychology of it means that sooner or later you’ll get something like what we saw on Saturday, and all you can hope is that you get that slackening off out of the way in just one game so you can re-group and start on the next winning run.

    I’m having trouble getting angry with anyone over this – it was just bound to happen in the next few games because no group of players can sustain that level of effort and belief indefinitely.

    What we don’t know is whether, as with the Spuds skunking, one was enough and we’ll see the spirit, quality and tempo return tomorrow.

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  39. Andy, try – Retube.com for some good video links mate 🙂 with your parents being out you should be right to go.. 🙂

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  40. Said it before we were second best from the manager down.
    Ive been more upset about silly points we have through the season like
    Wolves at home Fulham away etc..Its all a learning curve for a new team
    with players getting to know each other for some there first season in the PL.Still think that things look quite good Onward and upward.

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  41. We are also forgetting the fact that this team did well against Manure, Arsenal and Liverpool ,so if the players were complacent they were fools. Add that to the fact they are scrapping for their PL status and they should of known it wouldn’t be a walkover. But for me what was alarming wasn’t the tactics which was 433 to start by the way or even the players all having a bad day ,it was their pace. Every single player looked like he had lead in his boots ,like they all had a collective hangover ! .There was no pace at all first half and only marginally better second half . I’m not sure the blame can be laid at Pards door really ,rather it’s a collective issue on the day .One thing is for sure we wern’t the first to get a shock off Wigan of late.

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  42. KIMTOON the Stoke players were a disgrace and had one eye on the beach. Most of those Wigan players are playing the best football of their career under a very decent coach, we all knew it wasn’t going to be easy but I didn’t expect them to blow us away like that. At the end of the day this is the sort of thing that happens after 6 wins in a row. At least it didn’t happen against Chelsea or it would have been more than 4-0.

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  43. And against Chelsea it would have meant the end of the CL dream. As it is, some can still believe 😀

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  44. It’s refreshing that we have a manager who comes out and takes the blame on himself, it’s what Mourinho does and that’s why players love him and will fight for him. Such a contrast to what we had in past in form of, for example, Allardyce who was so far up his own **** that he blamed everything and everyone except for himself.

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  45. I’m glad Pardew has tried to shoulder most of the blame.
    IMO he got it wrong by underestimating Wigwam.
    I reckon he was thinking Wigan had already had the stuffing knocked outta them and would huff and puff but we had nowt to worry about. 3 points in the bag. 😳
    Of course it would have been nice if wigwam had played like furkin blackbum did against Spuds. I mean wtf was that all about ❓
    But this is Newcastle and everyone raises their game against us. Even blackbum would have a go. I still cant believe they rolled over like that 👿
    Anyhoo its done and dusted. Lesson learned. move on.

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