10 Talented Newcastle Players Who Were Well And Truly Pardewed

8. Shane Ferguson

By no means a talent on the same scale as Hatem Ben Arfa, the Northern Irish midfielder was classed as an up and coming prospect for a while before he was sent out into the No Man's Land of the loan market and basically forgotten about. It wasn't just that Ferguson was basically left to rot at Birmingham City - which he was even when Lee Clark dropped him from the first team and made his loan contract there pointless - it was that Pardew openly admitted in March last year that the club weren't really keeping track of his progress. Surely the point of a loan is for development, not just to get players away from the club so you don't have to pick them. And then even worse, Pardew did his usual trick of publically criticising a young player - he clearly believes in tough love for younger talents (hence his criticism of Paul Dummett and Sammy Ameobi recently), but it is a despicable thing to do, particularly when the player isn't at the club and he hasn't even been keeping a close eye on his progress. The fact that Ferguson is now stagnating at the club - possibly set for another loan before November - despite Joe Kinnear saying he was good enough to sign (the idiot) not so long ago, offers some indication of what those comments and the lack of developmental encouragement have done to Ferguson.