Pardew set for United stay

Carry on Pardew It looks as though Alan Pardew will manage to avoid the chop if you go by various recent press reports.

Apparently that meeting between himself and Mike Ashley has been and gone and it looks as though Pardew has managed to come through it relatively unscathed in terms of his tenure at United.

The Daily Star reckons that Pardew has been told that things must improve and they also assert that he will be given finds to improve the squad with. That last bit is good news because it is something that the club failed with so miserably last season although, as ever, we shall wait and see what happens with player incomings as they may well be balanced out by player outgoings. Remember, we've had that now famous warning from Pardew about the vulnerability of our players!

Anyway, if these press reports are true and Pardew has kept his job then where do we go from here? It's not ideal as I think I've seen enough now and I personally think now is the time to either get rid as the very last thing we need is to get to something like October/November and find no upturn in fortunes and be faced with a diminished pool of managers who have less time to work with a squad that isn't actually their own.

But what this news does do is end any uncertainty I guess. We know where things stand and everything else can be pressed on with now as things looked as though they'd been kind of put on hold whilst this whole situation was sorted out.

Personally I think that Pardew has his work cut out if he is to survive long term at United. That 5th placed finish was now a long time ago in football terms and any credit he built up during that campaign has been eroded by not just our finishing position last term, but also the brand of football we've tried to play which, by and large, has been awful to watch.

So now he has the chance to put things right. Despite media perceptions we, as NUFC fans, don't actually ask for a lot. Nothing less than 100% effort from everyone along with some decent football would be a start. It's now important for Pardew that we start off well next season, because if we don't then the pressure will just grow and grow until the inevitable happens.

I can't think of a manager that has managed to turn around such negative fan perception of him, but that is what Alan Pardew must now do. I would suggest a decent way for him to start doing that, and with football so far away right now, is for him to keep a low profile when it comes to what he says in the press for a while.

But that won't happen...