Newcastle's "Small Club Mentality" Is Your Fault, Pardew

Take nothing away from Alan Pardew after Newcastle's victory over Spurs yesterday: his decision to go for the jugular against a Spurs side who were shockingly casual in the face of Newcastle's willingness to give them pretty much all of the ball was inspired. His substitutions were nailed on, the system he played second half was perfect to take advantage of Spurs' weaknesses and lethargy, and he should be happy that the three points came down to him.

Obviously the fact that he said Newcastle are not out of the woods yet scored a win for common sense, but he also said something else that is a little bit more troubling. In the wake of the victory, the manager revealed what he had said at half-time:

€œThere were a few strong words. We just said to them after (the game) it€™s not nice as a manager to go in and bark out orders, but sometimes it€™s necessary just to shake people up because we needed shaking up.€

We€™re not a small club. We€™re a big club, and we were playing like a small club. It€™s a little bit daunting, even for senior players, to be without Papiss and Chiek Tiote after our win last week, but the new guys stepped up to the plate and gave us belief."

We were playing like a small club. A rare bit of insight into what has actually been going wrong for the past year or so, but the troubling things are that firstly Pardew seems to have come to this as some sort of new revelation (since he hasn't brought it into interviews before) and more worryingly, that he doesn't realise that it is the end-result of him continually telling us as fans and the team that Newcastle ARE a small club.

Every time he repeats that we cannot compete with teams like Swansea or Southampton in financial terms, the statement leaves a scar. When we were told the club would be emulating Aston Villa's model instead of Arsenal's, that left a mark too. And when Pardew changed his summer time prediction of Champions League competition to 48 points and 10th place, how could anyone resist the impact?

We're being set up to expect mediocrity - or at least the kind of muted success that smaller clubs perceive as being far greater in context - and it was only a matter of time before the endless reiteration of the same reductive points would have an impact on the team. Fans inevitably railed against the accusation that we weren't really a big club in modern terms, but the players would just as inevitably be far more susceptible to believing that under-hype. They are confidence players, we're told, but they're being told they're only really good enough for 10th place, so why the hell would they try and aim higher, even if they are able?

It's the same point as what happened with Hatem Ben Arfa: we turned a confident, maverick player into one who has to rebuild his career at Hull and admit that he's been fragile in the past. He's a bloody marvel, and because he was made the scape-goat at Newcastle, his mentality is just as negative as being told 10th is successful. The same goes for Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa, who admitted the Premier League was too physical for him: not true, he played well and competently at centre-half until he was expected to play at full-back.

But because he was fundamentally opened up to criticism because he was being played in a position he wasn't completely accomplished in, the fact that he wasn't suited to the position translated in his head to him not being good enough for central defence, and not right for the Premier League. Further proof that if you tell anyone something enough times, or your actions say it for you, they will start to believe it.

So, instead of accusing the team of playing like a "small club" perhaps Pardew should look at the culture that MADE them think they were, instead of just reaping the rewards when you tell them to stop it.