10 Most Laughable Excuses Alan Pardew Has Made At Newcastle
3. The One Where The Local Press Didn't Help
Back in April, with Newcastle on a run of 3 wins in 16 games, and with the Newcastle Chronicle reporting on fans holding Pardew Out banners in the stadium and protesting outside, Pardew decided to ignore the paper in his post-match press conference and then show some professionally bad self-awareness by somehow implying that the local press were to blame for his side's slump in the league:
Four defeats for Newcastle is going to bring its own pressure. I dont think the local press have helped.
Quite what that meant was probably up for debate: presumably the manager meant that the "negative reporting" was feeding into the crowd's bad feeling, which in turn was affecting the atmosphere at SJP, and making the players play badly. But it comes across as if the press weren't pulling their weight on the field, and that the side were suffering as a result, which is precisely why the North East Sunday Sun chose to run the cover above. The most distasteful part of the entire affair was the suggestion that Newcastle fans somehow weren't capable of forming their own opinions of a deeply disappointing run and were merely being fed propaganda by the papers. Which for an area so hewn from football, is a despicable suggestion.
