All power to Pardew, his approach to not playing football and beating teams on the break has paid dividends in the past month and a bit: Newcastle are inside the top half of the table and within touching distance of the top four, with three very winnable games to come. And typically, analysts have started to assess precise what has turned the club's fortunes around. Inevitably, those who remain stoically anti-Pardew will say that it is no more than frustration and luck that has got the teams through - that victory is coming despite the manager - while the other side of the coin will say that it's his genius that is really counting. The truth is, it's a little of both. The manager has changed back to the 4-3-3 system he played while Ben Arfa was in the team and the Magpies finished fifth, though the style is different, and Newcastle are surrendering a lot more possession, safe in the knowledge that there is more protection from the deeper lying defensive midfielders than was offered that year. Or it's that they just can't keep the ball - again, it depends on where you sit on the matter of Pardew. But it's interesting to reflect on the fact that Pardew's quotes about the success of his system throw up questions about his former commitment to analysing stats, and crowing about how much possession Newcastle enjoyed in poor results earlier in the season. Back then, he would claim everything was going in the right direction because the team were enjoying more possession, even if they weren't doing anything with it - "it's all there in the stats" - and that data was held up as indication of better times coming. Now though, his stance has changed. When asked last week to reflect on the changes that had been made, he came out with the following:
I couldnt be more pleased.I dont know the stats behind the run Ive not really analysed them at the moment but all I do know is we look a good side."
So how come he was so closely analysing stats literally minutes after defeats to defend his tactical system, and now that the stats are poor but the results great, he's suddenly not all that interested? You really have to be careful in these situations, if you're a manager, because it's sometimes a little too easy to make it look like you secretly don't know what you're actually doing, and you're just grasping at straws in defeat, and riding a wave you have no control over when you're winning.
