Pardew's silence on the summer striker hunt speaks volumes

The biggest disappointment of the summer for me has to our failure to add another striker to the ranks.

I dare say that it's Alan Pardew's biggest disappointment aswell after he was so publicly adamant that a striker would be brought into the club an addition to Demba Ba. Alas, for reasons that are unknown yet widely speculated about, it wasn't to be.

There had been rumours doing the rounds about Pardew and his managerial position at NUFC. Some rumours had claimed that he had walked away from St James' Park although those rumours now appear to be inaccurate. It's pretty clear that something wasn't right though such was the silence coming from Alan Pardew's direction. As the saying goes, the silence was deafening.

Still he was back talking to the press today ahead of the Monday evening trip to Loftus Road. the game itself was the topic of most of the conversation although there was some other comments of interest sandwiched between them. I'm talking specifically about this comment about the failed striker pursuit of the summer.

“We’ve still got a better squad than we finished with last year. Even without the signing of a striker on deadline day."

“I don’t want to go into that too much. But I just think we have started well, and players are playing well. We have players in form and we need to keep moving forward.”

It's the "I don't want to go into that too much" part that makes me wonder if we are seeing a subtle stance from Alan Pardew? Or is it just that he has realised that he has been sold out from above and doesn't want to comment on it?

It's been widely reported that Pardew was unhappy over the failure of the club to land the striker he wanted. In all probability this is more than likely why the speculation about his job started, and it's probably why we saw some form of loose statement cobbled together by the club last week. Is this another way of him apportioning blame?

To be honest I'll be glad when the football starts again. The transfer window has gone and, like it or not, there is nothing that can be done about it now.

We've made the best start to a Premier League season in 16 years and the best thing is that we've done it without playing to our best. There is more to come from this newer, younger, fresher, faster group of players so it will be interesting to see if they can continue to improve come Monday.

The angst can be temporarily packed away now and we can get back to what got us into this love affair in the first place. That is of course football!

Roll on Monday. Joey Barton and all!