Have we improved under Alan Pardew?

A lot of other sites around the web seem to be clocking on to the fact that Alan Pardew has now been in charge for ten games, well ten league games anyway.

It is perhaps a bit harsh to judge him entirely, although it does seem that football chairmen seem to think differently these days and very rarely offer a new management appointment any real time to try and influence things, but the question I want to ask is whether or not YOU think Alan Pardew is doing a good job or not?

Now I've had this planned for a while to be honest, but I've had to change it a bit as I don't want to be accused of copying anyone or stealing others ideas, so I thought I would start by looking at Pardew's first ten league matches against Hughton's last ten league matches to see if the comparison could give us any clue as to who is better.

I suppose the ultimate place to start is with regard to results. Hughton managed three wins, three draws and four defeats in his last ten games compared to Pardew's three wins, four draws and three defeats. That gives Hughton 12 points to Pardew's 13, and it could be argued that with games against Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal, and Tottenham (twice) the current boss has had a tougher run of fixtures and that Pardew has managed to gain those results without the use of Andy Carroll is seven of those ten games.

Pardew 1-0 Hughton.

What about goals scored and goals conceded though? Who organizes the team better?

Well Hughton's team scored 15 and conceded 18 in his final ten games which gives him a difference of -3. Compare that to Pardew who has managed to get his team to score 16 and concede 16 which makes him all square on the goal difference front.

So under Pardew we have scored more and conceded less in a ten game period, and Pardew's run of games has been, arguably, tougher than Hughton's.

Pardew 2-0 Hughton.

In the final days of Chris Hughton we had started to seen some indiscipline creep into the camp. Joey Barton was retrospectively banned for punching Morten Gamst Pedersen whilst Mike Williamson suffered the same fate for his 'challenge' on Johan Elmander of Bolton, so how do the two compare in the Premier League foul play stakes?

Well Newcastle racked up 23 yellow cards and one red in Hughton's final ten games compared to 21 yellows and no reds in Pardew's first ten league games. It's not a major difference, but there is a difference all the same.

Pardew 3-0 Hughton.

How about match attendances? Who is the bigger draw?

Both manager's had five home games in their respective ten game reference period, but it's Pardew who has come out on top again. In Pardew's ten league games there has been a total of 246,730 fans through the turnstiles at St James' Park compared to Hughton's 228,611. This gives Pardew an average crowd of 49,346 compared to Hughton's 45,722.

In the interest of balance though, it's worth pointing out that the fixtures that worked for Pardew in the first couple of examples could well be responsible for this, but it's still an increase of 8% so I'll have to give it to Pardew again.

Pardew 4-0 Hughton.

Now please don't think that this is an assassination of Chris Hughton, because it isn't. I was as shocked and dismayed as the rest when Hughton got the boot and still feel sorry for the bloke over the way it was handled.

Still, I always give people a chance to prove what they can do before writing them off, and that is what I have, and continue to do with Alan Pardew. You'll see, or read, no knicker twisting from me about it, certainly not three months after the event anyway.

What I have done here is gather statistical data together to compare the two, and Pardew has come out on top.

The results could have been even more impressive when you consider that, as mentioned earlier, Andy Carroll hasn't been available for seven of those ten games, Cheik Tiote hasn't been available for three games, and now we have no Shola Amoebi either. Make if it what you will, but these are the facts.

What do you think?
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