Newcastle: Alan Pardew In Self-Awareness Shocker

It's often easy to mock the Newcastle manager: he's an easy target thanks to his flip-flopping on the issue of excuses, and his apparent lack of self-awareness that leads to him never appearing accountable for his actions (the thing that he thought everyone was just calling arrogance). But occasionally he has moments where you actually do want to like him as much as the fans who have chosen to ignore the last twelve months of performances and heap praise only when he does good things. Yesterday's victory over Spurs was a triumph of self-awareness: the system in the first half was not working - Ayoze Perez was painfully isolated, Daryl Janmaat was targeted because of Obertan's refusal to track back (and the lack of cover from central midfield) and Vurnon Anita was once more employed in entirely the wrong role. But then, astonishingly, Pardew ripped up his little note-book and made two key - and actually very brave - substitutions, to bring Sammy Ameobi and Remy Cabella on, changed the system to be more attacking, and went for Spurs' throat. That it worked is a triumph (though it's not the first time he has changed formation against Spurs and won 2-1), but what is even better is that the manager came out after the game and chose not to over-hype the victory. He could have said the corner was well and truly turned, that Newcastle were looking up the league, and that times were a lot better now after two games in a row, but to his credit, he didn't:

€œBack end of last year we struggled, and the start of this year €“ with our new players not quite settling €“ we struggled again. I have not hidden from that, and I have not hidden from the criticism. €œWe still have a lot to do in this Premier League season, but I am going to smile, and I am going to enjoy this victory, because it€™s a big, big win for us.€

He was asked after the game if he felt the pressure was now off - another invitation to say something abominably annoying for fans:

€œNo, because I think you have to be realistic. I look at our side. We€™re still missing some big players. But the young players were terrific. Sammy Ameobi made a great little cameo, and Paul Dummett was brilliant second half. You have to lean on the positives when you€™re in this position. That€™s what we have done." €œThe fans were terrific, they wouldn€™t stop singing all game, and that helped us. It€™s like building blocks. And that is what we are doing at the moment, building blocks. I know one thing, whatever happens at Manchester City on Wednesday, there will be 52,000 fans coming into St James€™s Park with a bit more of a positive attitude."

Quite whether there will be as much positivity going into the Man City and Liverpool games - fixtures that would traditionally be written off as losers anyway remains to be seen - but the atmosphere should be a little lighter and a lot more excited come Saturday. Hopefully it's onwards and upwards, and if Pardew is chosen to be the man to lead the team for the rest of the year - you have to suspect that there'd have to be some sort of earthquake to shake him from the job - then hopefully he will continue to be honest, and stick to his media training a bit more.