The news last week that Newcastle manager Alan Pardew had been awarded a whopping new eight-year deal caused ripples around the Premier League. It was quite simply staggering display of faith in the 51-year-old on owner Mike Ashley’s part, but what has prompted them to tie him and his coaching staff down to such long-term deals? More importantly, is it even in the best interests of the club?
Since taking over the club in 2010 from Chris Hughton, it appeared to all that Ashley was once again meddling beyond his knowledge in what on the face of things appeared to be a finely run set-up under a thoroughly likeable manager. However, fast forward two years on and while we may still be able to agree that Hughton was harshly treated by the club hierarchy for perceiveably being too close to the senior players, Pardew’s tenure has been a resounding success and he’s certainly made the most of his resources going on to finish a magnificent fifth in the league last term, ahead of Liverpool, a team which had spent over £50m in the summer and Chelsea, the side that would go on to become the champions of Europe.
The club’s chief executive, the much-maligned Derek Lambias attempted to explain the length of Pardew’s deal by stating: “There is no coincidence that Manchester United with Sir Alex has been there over 25 years and has created stability and with that has come success, and along with Arsene Wenger stability has come success. What we have achieved over the last five years has been tremendous, we have put a lot into the model, financially we are stable and that will continue and now it’s all about stability on the pitch, and having the right managing and coaching staff and chief scout. It is a fantastic move for us and those individuals. You can’t keep changing your manager because you have a bad a run,” he said. “David Moyes for instance has done a fantastic job at Everton – they are going to be right up there, so we are looking for that sort of stability and so to give Alan the eight years is the right thing to do.
“Our model is not rocket science; other Premier League clubs do the same but over a four-year period we have taken them from a very bad financial position to a very good position which will only get better, and we will continue to strive to make football affordable for our fans and to fill that stadium and by having entertaining football is the way of doing it. I would like us to challenge for Europe year on year, and win a trophy. Last year we had a tremendous season – our goal this season is eighth and above but Alan wants to do better than fifth and our players want to do better than fifth.”
This is all very well and good but it still doesn’t quite explain the sheer length of his new contract and judging by Pardew’s reaction in the press the past few days, the issue was hardly pressed hard from his side. No, this has come from the club and Mike Ashley, but it’s still deeply puzzling. In the six-and-a-half years prior to Pardew’s appointment, Newcastle have gone through eight different managers in Sir Bobby Robson, Graeme Souness, Glenn Roeder, Sam Allardyce, Kevin Keegan, Joe Kinnear, Alan Shearer and Chris Hughton.
Along with Pardew, his backroom staff of assistant John Carver, goalkeeping coach Andy Woodman and first-team coach Steve Stone have also all been awarded eight-year deals similar to the one that chief scout Graham Carr received last year for ‘unearthing’ the likes of Tiote, Cabaye and Cisse.
It seems even when the club are trying to be sensible and plan for the future, they leaves themselves open to mockery. Words like ‘stability’ and ‘continuity’ are great to hear from both the fans and managers perspective, but it still doesn’t exactly get to the root of why he was offered a new eight-year deal than say rather a new five-year one which he got when he first took over the club. It’s truly puzzling.
From an outside perspective, while Ashley may have fallen back in love with the club and be in it for the long haul once more, you suspect that if he received a good deal from a billionaire in Asia or the Middle East over the course of the next few years that he’d still likely sell up, thus saddling the new ownership with a management structure on huge long-term contracts – the compensation packages alone would be mind-boggling.
The main reason that has been floated about is that it offers both parties in this deal a degree of protection. Pardew has spoken of his disappointment at not being able to clinch several signings this summer such as Andy Carroll, Luuk De Jong and Mattieu Debuchy which would really have improved his side which still lacks the necessary strength in depth to challenge consistently for the top four. This show of faith brings with it a degree of loyalty from a manager who has greatly impressed on Tyneside so far and has stated that he is eying the England job when this deal ends.
From Ashley’s perspective, he has finally found a manager willing to work within the financial parameters that he’s set out, while continuously backing the club’s transfer policy to the press. Should Pardew be tempted away be a bigger job, the longer nature of the deal guarantees a larger pay-out in terms of compensation for the club.
As good as Pardew is, though, there is surely a glass ceiling in terms of where he can realistically go from here; Newcastle will likely be the biggest club job he will ever have. I can’t particularly see him going abroad like Steve McClaren and Roy Hodgson have done in the past, nor can I see any of the other clubs above him fancying him further down the line, so it must solely be the lure of the England job that has prompted this deal. Hodgson will be 69 by the time his four-year deal with the FA runs out, so an extension is unlikely.
The biggest problem, though, is if Pardew fails to meet the criteria set out by Lambias of challenging at the top end of the league every year while seeking to end their trophy-drought, which currently stands at 43 years having last won the 1969 Fairs Cup, what will the club do?
Both Kevin Keegan and Sam Allardyce were awarded 10-year contracts at Newcastle and Bolton respectively in the past and both failed to see them through. History is not on Pardew’s side here; football isn’t a long-term game these days and the fact that only Arsene Wenger, Sir Alex Ferguson and David Moyes have managed at their current clubs for a period of eight years or longer is well worth considering. They were appointed at a time when clubs gave managers longer to shape the team in their own image, but to pretend the game is like that still seems foolish even if it’s good-intentioned.
What happens if in three years time Pardew finishes 12th, adrift of the European spots and with the side in a downwards spiral? While it’s likely that Ashley has inserted all sorts of exclusion clauses in terms of performance into the contract, they’re still saddled with a manager not doing as while as they would like, but they’re financially bound to him due to the needless risk that the length of this contract comes with. Who is to say that if a bigger club came calling for Pardew, that he wouldn’t just resign, therefore forgoing any entitlement that the club might have to financial remuneration in the process – they’re protected to a degree, but not to the extent that an eight-year deal makes sense.
We’ve already seen this summer that Newcastle’s transfer policy of scouring Europe for the best and most importantly, cheapest talent that their money can buy is not the most sustainable of policies. The selling clubs now have more of a grasp of what Newcastle are doing and the moment that they sell a Cabaye, Tiote or Ben Arfa for a fee past the £20m mark, their bargaining position becomes weakened because clubs know they’ve got the cash to spend, thus driving any future purchases up in price. This isn’t to mention that it’s going to prove extremely difficult to keep replacing players of the quality of Cisse, Coloccini etc with cheaper alternatives of equal quality.
The club haggled themselves into a standstill this summer on the Debuchy and Douglas deals and while this may be why the club are on such a sound financial footing at the moment, there’s no doubting that they could have done with a few extra bodies this term given that they now have a European campaign to contend with on top of their domestic commitments.
Pardew has done an excellent job so far at Newcastle and he’s proven himself to be a shrewd operator both on and off the pitch, capable of working within the strict budget constraints that Ashley requires above all else. There’s no doubting that he deserves a new deal for his efforts to date, but I’ve yet to hear a convincing explanation about the length of the deal, which seems to needlessly tie them both together in a game where a revolving door policy isn’t only the norm but is inevitable.
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