It's curious that Newcastle boss Alan Pardew seems so down on the pure 4-3-3 formation that team announcers occasionally still confuse his more defensively minded model for, considering it was that formation that was responsible for his Manager Of The Year award. Why deny your best achievements? Perhaps it's because Hatem Ben Arfa played too much of a part? Perhaps it's because the fall out of playing Demba Ba wider almost got Newcastle relegated when Papiss Cisse forgot how to be a striker? Either way, he needs to go back to it regardless. This season, Newcastle have been set up with an agenda to keep as much of the ball as possible, in the hope that possession will translate into goals by sheer force of will. Inevitably, it is a system built on a bland, terribly English idea of all the parts of an engine working seamlessly in defined, restricted roles to one simple end-goal, and even more inevitably, when faced with more continental and fluid opposition models, it hasn't been working. Something now has to change, even in the wake of the long awaited victory over Leicester City - and since it's not going to be the manager, it needs to be the formation. Pardew needs to take notice of the two awards that one of his summer acquisitions has just been nominated for. Ayoze Perez is on the short-list to win two categories at this year's Spanish Liga de Fútbol Profesionals awards ceremony after his 16 goal season with Tenerife that fired him onto Newcastle's radar: Best Breakthrough Player in the 2013/14 Liga Adelante and Best Attacking Midfielder in the second tier of Spanish football. Inevitably, some will say it's a lot easier to score in the second division in Spain than it is in the Premier League, but it's the title of that second nomination, and the hint at what Newcastle are missing about the player that hints of what he could become for the team. Ayoze is not the type of striker Alan Pardew seems to have used him as so far this season - coming on to just run around Cisse or Riviere and look busy: that is certainly part of it, but for Tenerife he played as a playmaker, winger, second striker and out-and-out striker, and his versatility could be very useful. If Pardew eventually succumbs to the pressure to play 4-3-3, and to stop opposition teams coming full of confidence because they see a system designed to limit their play rather than one they have to contain, he should be excited by the prospect of playing Rolando Aarons on one side of the front three, Cisse in the middle, and Ayoze on the other side. That injection of pace and skill into the wider areas is exactly what Newcastle need - and exactly what Cisse would thrive on (he already did when Ben Arfa was supporting him in 2011/12). Imagine how frightening that front three could be to opposition defences who have so far had too much of an easy time containing Newcastle's cautious attacking play. Gabriel Obertan - whose flash in the pan must surely disappear soon, judging by the precedent he's set himself - has already proved this season what running at defences can do, and the fact that we have two young players who would be brilliant at just the same role suggests that Pardew has the options there to try it. It's just whether he's willing to go back on his rejection of the 4-3-3 system that really matters...
