For all of his lack of grasp of tactics, system changes and the nuances of flair players, the one constant in Alan Pardew's career has been his preference for hard-working players who will give everything for the cause. That's why he's said so much recently about the fighting spirit of the squad, and how hard everyone is working to "try" and turn things round: he paints a picture of an engine straining to change results, because that's his ideal picture of a football team. This is the man, remember, who played Hayden Mullins ahead of Javier Mascherano and basically forced the Argentinian out of the door at West Ham after just months by simply ignoring that he existed - as best he could. His preference for players like Cheick Tiote - all fire and fearsome tackles - over Vurnon Anita - a proper technical footballer with the kind of brain Newcastle badly miss in the middle of the park - and his continued perseverance with Energizer bunny Yoan Gouffran says the same thing as that ridiculous snub. Yes, it probably comes from a good place: Pardew wants his players to earn their place in the squad through sweat and blood and tears, and the inevitable response in that mindset is to equate industry with ability. Clearly though, hard work is not the only answer to any football questions - no team in the history of any football competition has won out of sheer graft no matter what level they've played on. Even the fattest, most beer-soaked five a side team needs some sort of ringer to make it big. In that context, it is obvious why he doesn't like players like Hatem Ben Arfa - a notoriously poor trainer - or Sylvain Marveaux, who complained about having to play in unfavoured positions. Regardless of their natural ability, if they don't have the engine and the willingness to run through brick walls for the team, they can't just waltz into the team with a few fancy flicks and the best goals any Newcastle United fan has ever scored. That's just not a fair trade off. And thanks to a Tweet from Rio Ferdinand, there's further evidence of precisely why Pardew might have hated another flair player in the same bracket as Ben Arfa in his time at West Ham. When discussing Raheem Sterling's admission that he was too tired to start for England, Rio admitted that in his experience foreign players were always more likely to sit out of training when tired, instead of working through it: https://twitter.com/rioferdy5/status/521557714892492800 https://twitter.com/rioferdy5/status/521564107200557056 Now imagine how that would have went down with Pardew, and you have a fair indication of why he didn't give Tevez as much of a key role as Alan Curbishley subsequently would. Curbishley realised for his sins that Tevez was indispensible because of the magic in his feet, and he changed his team set-up to have Tevez as the most important player, forgiving him perhaps of not being the best trainer because when he was on, he was really on. That is the lesson that Pardew perhaps needs to heed most from his own past: industry can only get you so far, and you need that spark of magic to turn possession and graft and sweat into wins.
