One Alan Pardew?

I haven't read the word "puppet" or "stooge" or anything like that when people have been referring to Alan Pardew for a while.

Of course there is still the odd sly dig about the man who replaced Chris Hughton, but in general he seems to be winning the Geordie public around.

Being on a run of 13 competitive games without defeat is probably a large part of the reason why people are starting to warm to him, but there are other strings to his bow such as his media chatter and the fact that over the summer he too looked disappointed with the lack of a new striker at St James' Park. The fact that he was openly annoyed with the failure from the board seemed to endear him to a large bulk of the fans.

As far as the team goes, we are a team that is hard to beat and who never gives up. We've only lost at home twice under Pardew (Man City and Everton) and we've only lost eight games out of the 33 he has taken charge of which isn't bad at all. We try to play the game the right way and when things click it's great to watch. With more time hopefully these players will click a bit more and we can see yet more football that is pleasing on the eye. In short, he is doing a good job.

I never thought he would when he was first hired. He wasn't my first choice to replace Chris Hughton, in fact I don't even think he made my list of choices as he was that far off the radar, but I decided to give him time right from the start rather than be angry about it.

I had been angry about the appointment of Chris Hughton and he proved me wrong which is why I decided to back Pardew from the start. Call it learning from your mistakes. For some fans it's taken much longer to warm to him, and some of them still haven't, but I've certainly noticed a huge swing in support of Pardew recently.

Is that swing large enough for us to see some vocal support from the stand for the manager? I'm not so sure but if he carries on guiding us to results then I don't think it will be too long before we start to see, or hear perhaps I should say, some vocal backing for Pardew.

Is he perfect? No, of course not. He, like everyone, has faults. However he does seem to relish the job of being Newcastle United manager. Perhaps he feels he is fortunate to be in such a position? Perhaps he is? As long as he keeps getting the results he, like any manager, will be fine.

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