Pardew says relegation was a good thing! Do you agree?

Alan Pardew believes that the shock of relegation was the kick in the backside the club sorely needed, and he also believes that the cub will have no trouble attracting star players in the summer.

Speaking to the Northern Echo, Pardew claims that relegation was a good thing in hindsight. He claims that it allowed the club to sort out some fundamental issues at the club and get it heading in the right financial direction and says that the players who remained on Tyneside and battled in the Championship have become better players for it.

This new financial direction means that it will be some time before we see the star names that didn't care for us during our relegation season again, but Pardew also insists that he doesn't believe these financial constraints will cause us a problem in the transfer market and says that the pull of NUFC is still huge in the eyes of players.

Speaking about attracting good players to the club, Pardew had this to say;

"Because of the facilities we have, which are top drawer, and they're improving, this club is still a pull," Pardew told the Northern Echo. "The owner, Mike Ashley, has made a commitment to stay, so there's some stability, the length of my contract and the fact, more importantly, of 50,000 coming through the doors each week to support you are all in our favour."

"If you're a player with anything about you . . . you can play for a top club in France and get 18,000 watching you or a top club in Holland and you might get 8,000. You have 50,000 here and every away game sold out for us. That's a fantastic pull for any club and the history that goes with this club as well. The most important thing is that we build on this year and start challenging for trophies as soon as we can."

There is another clue in there about where we are looking for potential new recruits in my opinion. France and Holland anyone?

Pardew then went on to say that relegation was a good thing in hindsight and that we'd probably not be in as good shape had we not have gone down. Controversial, but let's here what he had to say first;

"Sometimes the readjustment of relegation isn't always a bad thing," he said. "You can put things in line financially sometimes and also the mentality of the club can change slightly and that correction isn't a bad thing."

"Everything gets realigned with relegation and maybe for Mike Ashley, Derek Llambias and the players that were here before, it was a good thing. For Jose Enrique and Fabricio Coloccini it didn't do them any harm to go into the Championship and learn what English football is all about."

"It's never a bad trait in your life to be humbled, it brings you into line. If the club had stayed up that year would we be stronger now? If you look a the financial results we published, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing."

"It's easier to say that after you're back in the Premier League of course. It's only two weeks ago we were playing Wolves and we were still very vulnerable and we still are to a degree because we haven't got great strength in depth."

It's an interesting point really. Are we better off for being relegated? I suppose we should ponder that and have a good old NUFC Blog mass debate.

For me, I don't see how anyone could say that relegation was a good thing. All of these changes in financial approach and changes in transfer policy could have been done whilst we still had a Premier League income which would have mean that Mike Ashley wouldn't have had to pump in however many millions last season.

On the other hand, would we have started to make those changes if we were still in the Premier League? I'm not so sure. Michael Owen may have gone as he was out of contract, but what about the other high-earning, under-performing players? Would we have just persevered with them? I think we probably would have...

For me I think Pardew is about right. Getting relegated was the kick up the arse the club needed which forced it to do something, but it still could have been done in the Premier League regardless.

So was relegation a good thing? Not for me.

What about you?

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