10 Talented Newcastle Players Who Were Well And Truly Pardewed

3. Sylvain Marveaux

There's something about talented French attacking midfielders that just doesn't mesh well with Alan Pardew. Ask the manager and he'll probably say it's all down to the attitude they show: Sissoko will work hard, so he's in, Gouffran will run forever, so he's in, but Hatem Ben Arfa wouldn't change the way he played to fit a system that didn't suit him, so he was pushed out, and Sylvain Marveaux likewise didn't suit Pardew's vision so he was jettisoned. The greatest trick Pardew has pulled in both of those player's cases is to convince Newcastle fans that neither were particularly good in the first place because they never worked hard enough. By that logic, David Ginola and Laurent Robert would never have been allowed near the first team under Pardew. The truth is that Marveaux is a very gifted attacker - deft of footwork, possessing great vision and with the key to playing in the traditional attacking midfield role that Pardew has struggled to understand since he came in. Rather than playing Marveaux through the middle in the hole - where he should have - he's play him wide, or in central midfield, which is like getting a formula one car to plough a field. And yet we all seemed to go along with the assessment that he had a bad attitude and was lazy - kudos to Pardew on that front.