Alan Pardew is set to sever ties with Newcastle United after a tempestuous four-year spell in charge on Tyneside and return to his first professional club, Crystal Palace. Discussions over a compensation package were agreed on Monday night.
The Premier League's second longest serving manager had made clear to the Newcastle owner, Mike Ashley, his desire to leave St James' Park in favour of joining Palace, where he spent more than four years as a player. Ashley is currently on holiday in Barbados but, with Pardew's intent expressed, opened negotiations with the London club's co-owner, Steve Parish, on Monday. Pardew is contracted to 2020 but a fee of around £3m is expected to secure his release and allow him to take up the reins at Selhurst Park.
He will sign a four-year contract with the club on a much improved basic wage having been granted permission to discuss terms on Monday night. Palace, who currently languish just inside the relegation zone after a solitary win in 13 matches, dismissed Neil Warnock on Saturday after four months in charge.
“As a result of this development today (Monday), Alan will not be at training on Tuesday,” read a statement from Newcastle. “Training will be the responsibility of assistant manager John Carver. The club will make a further announcement in due course.”
Newcastle could well ask Peter Beardsley, who is much admired by Ashley, to step up from his role as the development team manager in the short term and assume caretaker duties starting with Thursday’s visit of Burnley. It is anticipated that the first-team coach, Steve Stone, and Carver will remain at the club.
Pardew, 53, whose family home remains in Surrey, had recovered from a dismal opening to the season with Sunday’s win over Everton lifting Newcastle to ninth. Yet he had grown increasingly frustrated at his lack of influence in terms of transfer policy at St James’ Park, where the manager’s input is minimal and the chief scout, Graham Carr, effectively operates as a director of football.
He was particularly dismayed to learn earlier this month that money would not be made available for the purchase of a striker in the forthcoming January transfer window. Indeed, with the side currently well clear of the relegation scrap, it is more likely that the Newcastle managing director, Lee Charnley, will instead actively seek to sell the midfielder Moussa Sissoko, a scenario the manager had suffered a year ago when Yohan Cabaye was shipped out to Paris Saint-Germain.
While Pardew’s bond with Ashley has been strong, the former Reading, West Ham, Southampton and Charlton manager had grown weary, too, of the fractious relationship he has endured with the club’s fans. There have been various recent campaigns for his resignation or dismissal by large sections of a Newcastle support who have come to see him as an unpopular owner’s stooge. Despite the upturn in results which took the side to the top half of the table, a fourth successive defeat in the Tyne-Wear derby just before Christmas refuelled the discontent, coming so soon after the anticlimax of defeat in the League Cup quarter-final at Tottenham Hotspur. Indeed, while Palace will consider securing Pardew something of a coup, his departure will not be mourned in the North-east.
He will be welcomed back to Selhurst Park more enthusiastically and may now succeed in securing the services of Bafétimbi Gomis, a player he had courted while at Newcastle, from Swansea for around £6m as Palace, who visit Aston Villa on New Year's Day, seek to strengthen. There is interest, too, in the Welsh club's left-back Neil Taylor and Lille's Pape Souaré and Parish and his co-owners are expected to back up the new manager's appointment with investment in the squad as Palace seek to secure their top-flight status while a prospective takeover by the American businessman Josh Harris is still on the horizon. Andy Woodman, another former Palace player, is likely to follow Pardew south while the London club's current caretaker manager, Keith Millen, is retained on the staff.
Newcastle and Ashley will consider their options as they seek a replacement. The new incumbent will have to accept the club's general policy of signing players of 26 or under with sell-on value as well as the current structure in place at St James' Park, where his role is more that of a head coach than a traditional English manager. Steve Bruce, who has six months to run on his contract at Hull City, will be interested in the role and is close to Carr but has struggled at the KC Stadium throughout 2014 despite a significant outlay on transfers.
Tim Sherwood would be another option while Frank de Boer has spoken glowingly of Newcastle in the past even if his agent has indicated the Dutchman would be reluctant to leave Ajax in mid-season. Captain Fabricio Coloccini has also emerged as a surprise contender given his close relationship with Ashley.
There is admiration, too, for the Saint-Étienne coach, Christophe Galtier, but Tony Pulis, who is eager to return to management having left Palace on the eve of the current season, may consider the restrictions under which he would have to operate too onerous.
(Guardian service)
