Alan Pardew is the Best English Manager Today. Here’s Why.

So there’s this scene in a Winnie-the-Pooh movie my daughter loves.¹⁾When you have a 2-year-old daughter you lede your soccer blogs with Winnie-the-Pooh illustrations. I’ve decided it’s best to accept this rather than fight it. Tigger has just shown Roo a favorite bounce of his and Roo decides to try it for himself even though he has no idea what he’s doing.

It doesn’t go well. Here, look:

The above GIF is a good summary of Newcastle’s season after Pardew left, Crystal Palace’s season before Pardew’s arrival, as well as the seasons of any number of recently relegated Premier League teams–Hull City, Fulham, last season’s Norwich side, and Blackburn all come to mind. Sunderland’s relegation-like form for large stretches of the last season would also belong in the conversation. They have such good goals and yet somehow it all goes wrong.

Alan Pardew doesn’t over-complicate things.

Ours is a moment where everyone obsesses over football tactics. Managers like Jose Mourinho have made their name thanks to their clever use of tactics while other managers like Andre Villas-Boas have made a far more dubious mark in the game after being hired purely for their tactical nous without any sense of their man-management abilities or in-game decision making.

You see this tactics obsession reflected in football journalism. Michael Cox and Jonathan Wilson are the biggest beneficiaries of this evolution, but sites like Spielverlagerung²⁾which, in fairness, is almost always fantastic have also benefitted from this evolution. And, of course, we can’t talk about this new interest in tactics without bringing up the excellent work that Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher do on Sky Sports:

But there can be a dark side to this shift as well. To understand the issue think of a soccer game as a race to 100 points–a superior tactical plan might be worth 20 points–or maybe even 30 or 40 if we’re dealing with something like Jose Mourinho against John Carver. Even in these cases, however, tactics is only one part of the equation. Other things like talent, the morale and work-rate of your players, and (the largest factor of all, actually) luck all play a major role in deciding an outcome. Tactics matter–but so do a dozen other factors.

It’s entirely possible, then, for a manager to understand tactics and to still lead his team off a cliff into footballing purgatory. And that brings us back to Pardew. Pardew will never be confused for being some sort of tactical master-mind. He has been badly outcoached on multiple occasions and he’s unlikely to ever boss a Champions League-caliber team.

However, Pardew is equally unlikely to ever be relegated. Why? He doesn’t over-think things. His teams play simple but effective football. He finds his playmakers and can usually get the best out of them–just look at Yohan Cabaye, Yannick Bolasie, or Jason Puncheon.³⁾Let’s all agree that Hatem Ben Arfa’s poor run at Newcastle is more his fault than Pardew’s.

Alan Pardew is his generation’s Harry Redknapp.

If all those traits sound familiar, there’s a reason for that–we’re basically describing Harry Redknapp. And Redknapp actually managed to get his side into the Champions League, although even that achievement should be kept in context as it came after Liverpool’s slip and before Manchester City’s ascent. After Manchester United, Chelsea, and Arsenal someone had to get fourth in England–and in 2009-10 that someone was Redknapp’s Tottenham.

Even with that qualifier, however, one has to admit that Redknapp had a mostly successful career and managed to punch above his weight on several occasions. His Spurs side in 2011-12 was the best team to grace White Hart Lane in decades and much of that was down to Redknapp’s managerial style. He gave difficult-to-manage genius Rafael van der Vaart a free attacking role. He gave Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon license to run on the wings. And his man-management abilities were key in getting the best out of Emmanuel Adebayor, who may have had his best professional season that year at Spurs.

Pardew is cut from a similar cloth. Cabaye and Cisse, neither of whom are easy to manage, played the best football of their careers under Pardew. He also got far more out of players like Fabricio Coloccini, Moussa Sissoko, and Ayoze Perez than John Carver ever managed, although it’s hard to say if that’s a function of Pardew’s superiority as a manager or Carver’s ineptitude. At Palace, meanwhile he made an even more impressive impact.

Here is Palace’s record before Pardew’s hire: 3-7-9, 20 goals scored, 30 goals conceded, -10 goal differential
Here is Palace after Pardew’s hire: 10-2-7, 27 goals scored, 21 conceded, +6 goal differential.

If he maintained that pace over 38 games, Palace would 20-4-14 with 54 goals scored, 42 conceded, and a +12 goal differential. With a total of 64 points, that would have Palace finishing level on points with Tottenham Hotspur but ahead of Spurs on goal differential. They’d also be two points clear of Liverpool and four clear of a Southampton side that has been hailed as a major over-achiever. To manage such an accomplishment at a club of Crystal Palace’s size is remarkable.

Conclusion

Obviously you can point out that Pardew has a longer track record as a manager than last season–and it’s not nearly as impressive. That’s fair. But managers can improve over time. And his record at Newcastle is looking much better in hindsight after the club’s horror show finish under Carver. If Pardew can match this season’s results over a full campaign at Palace then it should be clear beyond any doubt that he is the best English manager of his generation. Obviously that isn’t a particularly impressive title given the paucity of top English managers at the moment. But even so Pardew has managed an impressive 12 months. The question heading into next season is whether he can do it again.