Too hasty to dismiss the progressive Pardew

I was really disappointed to see the news yesterday that Alan Pardew had been dismissed by the new Icelandic owners of West Ham. For me as a neutral it was hasty and an over-reaction to sack one of the very few promising young English managers in the Premiership.

What I liked most about Pardew - as I wrote about in a post written on 28 Oct called "Alan Pardew should not be dismissed" - was that he was dedicated to playing an attractive brand of smooth-passing, attacking football. I simply enjoyed watching his team play in the Premiership last season.

This season West Ham have struggled to find any momentum amid what I consider to have been the destabilising context of takeover talk from owners with questionable agendas. I thought Pardew did well to sail the ship during this time and with them beating my team, Arsenal, they did look to have been moving again in the right direction until a tough last week of defeats at Everton (where they played well in defeat at a tough venue), Wigan at home and then Bolton away (which again as a Gunner I know is a tough fixture).

The fact that he had gained West Ham promotion to the Premiership and that in their first season back in the top flight they had finished ninth and were seconds away from lifting the FA Cup final didn't count for anything yesterday as the new owners wielded the axe. Its a shame and I hope that it isn't long until Pardew is back in the Premiership leading a team with the vision of playing good quality attacking football.

As for Alan Curbishley coming back to West Ham: I like the match-up. But in the long-run how much better is he an option that retaining the progressive Pardew? In my opinion I think there is very little between them in terms of coaching quality.