PARDEW SURRENDERS TO THE OBVIOUS, AGAIN

Soccer tactics quiz: You have one top-quality striker and a surplus of midfielders, including a natural hole player healed from a devastating injury and desperate for playing time. Do you:

A) Play the star striker solo and insert the hole player as an extra midfielder?

B) Pair the star with an average strike partner and let the hole player rust?

If you said A), you're probably responding to common sense, rather than the pressures and expectations of being a Premier League manager.

Managers and coaches at the highest levels of professional sport aren't paid top dollar to make easy decisions. They are paid to have Ideas and Methods and Systems and Philosophies that are more sophisticated than, say, having the fans vote on the lineup, which would be a lot cheaper, and usually wrong.

Once in a while, though, a manager - especially a successful manager - gets so wedded to a particular set of Ideas and Methods and Systems and Philosophies he disdains a solution that appears almost ridiculously obvious to everyday people with a more distant but broader perspective, i.e., the customers in the stands. Such was the case during Newcastle United's recent six-match un-winning streak, until Monday at Bolton, when Alan Pardew did, for the second straight match and in less desperation, what fans have been reduced to begging for: Abandon a 4-4-2 that has become more boring and predictable than a North Korean military parade, and unleash Hatem Ben Arfa behind the sizzling Demba Ba.

It took but 10 minutes for the visibly rejuvenated squad to produce two decisive goals, the first from Ben Arfa himself, producing a hurricane-force gust of joy and relief from the full-throated Toon Army contingent at Reebok Stadium and their compatriots dancing in front of TV sets and computer screens around the world. The 16-year-old schnauzer we're dog-sitting still hasn't forgiven me from interrupting his daily 20-hour nap, which isn't easy to do.

I've come to believe Pardew is one hell of a manager, and not just from the results. Unflappable doesn't begin to describe him. (Can you imagine having to be Mike Ashley's PR director on the side?) But the man is awfully conservative sometimes. This is the second time this season his team has responded instantly to a change the fans - and judging from the undeniable boost of energy on both occasions, perhaps even the players - have been praying poignantly for him to make. Remember Wigan back in October, and the overdue insertion of Sylvain Marveaux? What would you have said if you'd been told that Gabriel Obertan, whom Marveaux replaced on that autumn day, would take until past Christmas to get a shot on goal? With Marveaux on the shelf and Ben Arfa cooling his heels all the while?

But Obertan is important to the club, so I'll lay off, and encourage everyone to do the same. The only tool he appears to lack is belief, and booing is the opposite of what he needs. What he needs - what the whole club needs - is something to take the pressure off. That something was buzzing from hole to wing at Bolton wearing a 10. He may not be a tight fit for the manager's carefully considered, experience-tested scheme. On a successful team, however, in the end everyone has to adapt to the resources at hand - including the leader.

Comments

[Nathan]

Shut up.

[Shane]

This is just stupid Pardew bashing, his options are limited at the moment and I believe the system will change. Ben Arfa has not played a full game for more than a year. That will mean he conditioning has almost completely gone. This has to be built up slowly.

Ben Arfa has said he is still not 100%, Pardew has said Ben Arfa is not 100%. All of these little cameo appearances are doing him the world of good. Ben Arfa might start a game soon and play well for 60 mins, after that he runs the risk of picking up a muscle injury as he cannot be anywhere near conditioned enough for 90 of EPL action.

It is not a unusual for a player that is out for an extended period and he is rushed back into playing too much to quickly to pick up and unrelated muscle injury. Want proof see Gosling, Dan or Santon, Davide.

Keep giving he these appearances making them a little longer each time. Within a month he should be ready to lay a full game.

[Sara]

That is the cutest schnauzer I've ever seen!

[Bob]

I don't know that Pardew has said, lately, that Ben Arfa isn't 100 percent, and I'd be surprised if Ben Arfa said it. Pardew pronounced Ben Arfa "near his best" more than a month ago. AP did say, last week, that Ben Arfa "needs to come up a level," but that was in context of helping out given the injuries at the back: "He's an individual character in terms of his personality on the pitch, but in terms of that we still have situations where we need to be at full tilt to put him in the team and we're not quite there at the moment." That sounds like a concern about teamwork, not fitness.

[Paul]

Lol. Idiots make decisions for other people when they neither have the knowledge or expererience. Let alone having all the facts.
Who knows exactly how fit/confident/strong etc Ben Arfa is? Who knows if his attitude needs tweaking? Who knew that despite losing our only left back Pardew would drill Ryan into a cable replacement while we were preparing Santon? Who knew Ba would be as good as he is? Who knew that Cabaye would adjust so quickly? Or that Collo & Steven would be a Solid wall? That Krull would be the next Shay Given?
Pardew knows his business. Everyone thought at the start of the season that a few injuries and we could be fighting Relagation. We are still looking at fourth. And if Abromovich had not threatened the Refs family in the Chelsea game, we would probably be there.
Wake up, smell the coffee.
Great Job Pardew.

[MickeyMagpie]

Here here Paul. Well said that man. Until this week HBA had shown very little aside from a most undeserved penalty (winning of) at auld Trafford. This wasn't the obvious call the article above suggests. Also Minty Best was much better than average til the end of November. He appears to have regressed significantly since then, in inverse proportion to Demba Ba.

[Derek]

Nobody gets more frustrated at not seeing HBA play than me but I believe what is also going unsaid is Pardew's need to try to get Best up to speed for next month. With Ba gone for the ACN, Best is most likely going to be the one leading the line. He seems to be trying to get the rust out and get him acclimated in time to do so

[Tom]

So, all you guys ripping Bob's post, please answer this question for me: If Pardew had stuck with the 4-4-2 on Monday, would NUFC have won the game? Can you honestly say yes based on the first 61 minutes?

Also, you appear to have missed the sentence where Bob says "Pardew is one hell of a manager." No one is arguing that he's done a great job. We all like Pardew. But this is a blog, and our opinion is that a formation that's not a 4-4-2 offers more tactical flexibility in the attack. Sometimes, putting two up front and trying to hammer a team in the mouth is the way to go. Other times, it's not. Monday wasn't one of those times.

[Corned Beef]

Eh?

[Shane]

Bob, after the game BA said he was nearly 100% again, implying that up to this point he is not 100%.

Tom,
Probably not, but the point most of us have made is that out options, throught injuries and supsensions, are limited at the moment. We don't have the squad depth to allow us to do what you want for 90 mins of an EPL game.

I don't think we will see a 4-4-2 with Best and Ba if we had a fully fit fully availably squad, but we don't so we gotta make do.

[Bob]

I have to say, I'm stunned at how this post has struck a nerve with readers. When I wrote it my main fear was it might be too pat. I suspect people are reading a snarkiness or sarcasm into it that I didn't mean. I really do think AP is a hell of a manager, but that he, like all successful managers at a high level, faces pressure that can make him slow at times to take the risk of change. That's all. And I think that explanation is actually easier on Pardew and HBA than some of what's being written elsewhere about the situation.

Shane, I just don't believe this is purely a fitness issue, and that's more about my experience as a sports journalist than as a football-watcher. If this were a mere matter of HBA not being 100 percent, I don't know why Pardew won't say so in that many words; "He's not ready to start" is a very easy answer and puts the issue to rest. But that answer also sort of reserves HBA a spot in the XI before long. So instead we get this meandering around the issue with comments about individual character and defense and shape of the team, which is why journalists keep asking and fans keep wondering and we keep getting stories about whether there's a rift or the player is hard to manage, etc. As for HBA's comments after the game about being near 100 percent, I took that as a shot across Pardew's bow to not use fitness as an excuse to keep him out of the team, and I'm not the only one (though I admit it's a stretch to use the Daily Mail sports page as an examplar of fine journalism): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2079304/Hatem-Ben-Arfa-tells-Newcastle-boss-Alan-Pardew-Now-let-loose-Liverpool.html?