Friday 25 December 2015

Pardew and Howe go head to head

It is good to see two top English managers in the Premier League that are doing well. Alan Pardew has been at Crystal Palace now for almost a year and in that time the Eagles have been playing like a top six team, so Eddie Howe has his work cut out this coming weekend.

Pardew has been billed as the next England manager and if you look at his record you can see why he has the edge on most other candidates with West Ham, Southampton and Newcastle among the former Premier League teams that he has managed. There are those who will say well what has he won, but no English manager has led a top six side of late that has won a cup, unless you include Harry Redknapp at Spurs in that equation. I'd say Pardew has done the hard work by keeping teams like Newcastle Utd in the Premier League and at Crystal Palace he now has the chance to build his own team that was perhaps not the case when he was at Newcastle Utd.
Eddie will be up against one of the other top English managers this Boxing Day.
Of course, Eddie Howe has been building his sides and his experience of doing that job has changed from creating a team with a shoe-string budget to now having millions that he can invest in new players. While the resources of Crystal Palace are higher, the field could be a little more level at the end of this season if the Cherries can stay up and finish in the top half of the table. That will need Eddie to get the better of managers like Alan Pardew and I don't know of a much more fierce and confrontational manager when decisions don't go his way. Boxing Day is a good day to be up against Pardew!

What I do like about both managers is that they want their teams to express themselves and to attack. While the possession game is AFCB's choice of styles, Crystal Palace don't mind playing on the break away and at Dean Court we could see a very busy day for the keepers at both ends. Pardew does not draw many games as you can see by his managerial record at Crystal Palace. I get the feeling this game won't be last one on Match of the Day.

By the way, it was announced in the press conference this week that the Crystal Palace game would be Eddie Howe's 350th match today as a manager. Not sure why Wikipedia says he has done 351 already - I'll let you do the maths.

Alan Pardew's Crystal Palace Managerial Record
P41 W23 D3 L15 win percentage 56.1%

No comments:

Post a Comment

tag: