10 Worst Decisions Alan Pardew Has Made As Newcastle Boss

10. Exchanging Wayne Routledge For Gabriel Obertan

Arguably one of Pardew's biggest oversights and a measure of his slipshod judgement was trading Wayne Routledge for the hapless Gabriel Obertan. Routledge was a mid-season acquisition by Chris Hughton during our brief sojourn in the Championship and turned out to be a shrewd addition to a squad lacking pace and incision from the right-flank; two qualities he brought in abundance to St James' Park. He even began the following campaign in the starting line-up but quickly faded from the first-team picture once Pardew had seized the reins from Hughton with Joey Barton preferred on the wing. Routledge was swiftly shipped off to Swansea for £1.5 million in the summer of 2011 and replaced by Obertan at twice the cost. We suspect Manchester United laughed all the way to the bank. And say Obertan has been an unmitigated failure at Newcastle would be an understatement. In three years on Tyneside he's made just 54 appearances and scored twice in contrast to Routledge who has racked up over a century of games for Swansea, found the net 12 times and assisted 20 goals in the same period. Doesn't take a genius to fathom why Pardew has been stripped of all authority on the recruitment side. The statistics, on this occasion, tell no lies.