Wednesday, July 10, 2013

The manager bites back

As you might have anticipated, the Silver Fox's first public pronouncements since the reappointment of JFK made for interesting reading.

Much of his energy was, predictably, directed at vigorously defending his own apparently precarious status and position amidst the shake-up: "I'm my own man and I will manage this football club to the best of my ability". (Some would suggest that "the best of my ability" doesn't really amount to an awful lot, but I'll let that go.)

However, he also took the opportunity to take a couple of nicely subtle swipes at the man Jabba's brought in for him to report to. The first was evidence of his disgruntlement at the way his players have had their names mangled: "Some of the things Joe said, he's apologised for, especially getting the names wrong of our players. That needs to be corrected, because there's a certain respect needed there". Consider your wrist slapped, JFK.

The second jibe was buried within the Silver Fox's attempt to rationalise the departure of Derek Llambias: "Mike feels Joe probably knows the scene better than Derek. That might be Mike's opinion, but as far as I'm concerned the most important factor for Joe is transfers". In other words, and by implication, Jabba's opinion that JFK is an upgrade on Llambiarse is wrong. I don't doubt it.

The Silver Fox also struggled to communicate exactly how the new off-pitch structure will operate in practice. Certainly it seems somewhat convoluted, with individual roles somewhat ill-defined and a very real danger of too many cooks spoiling the broth - not least when one of said cooks is JFK. How long before the Silver Fox does a Keegan, driven out by what he perceives to be unwelcome and unwarranted meddling and interference?

Labels: , , ,

Share

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pardew would never walk out there would be nothing for him to go to

The fact is though if we feel he should be blamed for last season, the Brighton match did it for me then equally he should be lauded for the season before

as a result he stands at 1-1 for me at the moment lets hope he takes the lead 2-1 and we have another good season rather than 1-2 and a bad one

bur for me he deserves his chance and all the doom mongering doesn't help anything, it started at Hull at home when keegan walked out( to another vast payout) and ended with relegation the same season, oddly a home draw in that game would have kept us up and sent hull down

lets all hope the pardew haters don't create a negative atmosphere and the team and pardew and in fact Kinnear are given a chance

lets hope for the best rather than look for the worst, that's what used to set us apart from other fans and give us a reputation we deserved a one which we are either losing or have lost, and we can only blame ourselves for that.

12:56 pm  
Blogger Ben said...

Cheers for your comment. I wasn't suggesting we're in the 'Pardew Out' camp and generally agree with you - much as he wasn't solely to be credited with our astonishing finish in 2011/12, he shouldn't be solely blamed for what happened last season. As you say, it could now go either way - a good start and I suspect he'll be forgiven, but if we start poorly then the pressure will only increase and I could see him out of a job by Christmas. There's no doubt that, while that first full season means he retains the vestiges of respect, he's got to prove himself all over again.

1:26 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pardew spends too much time saying "nothing". He hides behind others and yet claims he is the boss.
Cracks are appearing and it is only.a matter of time before he goes. When JFK returns he will ascert his position leaving Pardew struggling. Make no mistake JFK will interfere and Pardew had better prepare.
Basically Pardew is out of his depth and has been found out.

2:23 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

following on from my first comment and your reply, this will be massive for pardew and the club and the first 10 games will give us the answer,

lets hope its a good start because if its bad one .....

4:12 pm  
Anonymous Robert Doyle said...

At least the arrival of JFK (or "THE MULLETED FUCKWIT"as he was so eloquently named in the subsequently posted "Month of Saturdays---June, 2013) has made Pardew seem somewhat sympathetic and relatively coping. Perhaps this salient relative comparison will go a long way toward some positivism by and toward the silver fox---all self fulfilling like and showing up on the pitch preferably!

8:09 am  

Post a Comment

<< Home