Quintin Jardine's blog

Sorry to be football obsessed, but that’s the way I am. I noted the following in Henry Winter’s Telegraph story on the Alan Pardew press conference following his unveiling as manager of Newcastle United:

‘It’s a shame this London connection is thrown at me. I do not consider myself ‘London’. I managed last at Southampton and I live in Surrey.”

I feel sad for Mr Pardew. To the northerner, Surrey is a suburb of London and Southampton is somewhere next door, just as Londoners often think nothing of asking colleagues in Edinburgh or Glasgow to ‘pop along to Aberdeen’. Football managers step into dead men’s shoes; it’s the nature of the game. But to do so with such a lack of understanding of the place to which he’s going, that’s almost suicidal. Not surprising though; his entire football career as player and manager has taken him no further north than Crystal Palace.

I hope Pardew succeeds, I really do, even though my step-son is a Sunderland supporter. I just don’t believe he’s the man for the job; nor do 98% of the club’s supporters, as polled by the local newspaper. He is one of nature’s Reading, or West Ham, managers, going to a club that needs someone with Man U qualities. His respected predecessor, Chris Hughton, might not have been that man, but at least he’s spent his entire career at assistant/caretaker level at big clubs, and had a decent record throughout. If Mike Ashley, the club’s owner, was determined to get rid of him, be should have gone poaching and hired Owen Coyle. Little wonder that Ashley, lacked the courage to sit beside his new employee as he faced the media, leaving him instead to take the flak alone.