Newcastle: 10 Major Mistakes Pardew Has Made In 2014

5. Not Playing Our Own Football

For most of the last year, because of the sale of Yohan Cabaye, Alan Pardew has adopted a small club mentality that has been roundly and fairly criticised by the fans. He has set up his teams, even at St. James' Park to play reductive football designed only to contain the opposition, rather than playing to the strengths of his own players. Too often, Newcastle have played on the back foot, allowing teams to play their own way, which inevitably gives even the less able teams confidence to play like the home side, knowing that Newcastle will only attack once their threat has been dealt with (if at all). There has been too little confidence in the past 12 months of football, and too much heavy reliance on deep lying defensive midfielders, when taking the game to the opposition would have been far more effective. And frankly, trying to play containment football against teams like Swansea is no more than an open statement that they're the superior team from the outset.