The dominant alpha-male aspect of Alan Pardew’s sometimes complex personality is probably encouraging him to believe he can pitch for the England job while propelling Crystal Palace into Europe. Yet in quieter, more reflective moments back at his home in Surrey a nagging little voice in his head is possibly reminding him that pride can come before a fall.
Palace’s 2-1 win at Chelsea on Saturday has left only Manchester City between Pardew’s side and the top of the Premier League but the sensible side of his character will ensure he remembers some important modern history.
On 6 December last year Pardew’s then Newcastle United team beat Chelsea 2-1 at St James’ Park and all was hunky dory. Well – at least until Newcastle went and lost their next four games including, critically, a home derby against Sunderland. By the new year the manager had snatched at the lifeline sent from south London and, accelerating hard down the A1, probably breathed a sigh of relief once Scotch Corner began receding in his rear view mirror.
If there is absolutely no reason to suspect things are about to go similarly wrong at Selhurst Park, it would be ridiculous to predict the overthrow of the division’s traditional ruling elite after only four games. The prospect of those two great egotists, Chelsea’s José Mourinho and Manchester United’s Louis van Gaal, finally self-destructing may be enticing but both possess formidable survival instincts.
It is also far too early to judge if the loosening of the purse strings at previously financially straitened Palace, Watford, Leicester and Bournemouth is really going to introduce a new, more egalitarian, feel to a theoretically much more competitive top division.
Only time will tell if the television money currently enabling the game’s middle classes to “gentrify” themselves has been well spent. Remember the cautionary tale of Hull City, who splashed out £40m on new players last summer yet still ended up relegated? Lavish by many standards, that outlay still proved insufficient to halt a league slide that began early in 2014 and was merely camouflaged by a run to the FA Cup final.
Steve Bruce’s net spend a year ago was around £25m, a couple of million more than Pardew’s so far this window but, unlike Hull, Palace have the platform of last spring’s strong finish. Just as teams that end a season badly have an uncanny knack of starting the next one poorly, sides who finish strongly tend to begin brightly. It is a syndrome that is arguably benefiting Claudio Ranieri at Leicester City.
In many ways Palace, who won seven out of nine away league games under Pardew last season, are simply carrying on where they left off. It will take months before it is certain whether their decision to invest the bulk of the summer budget on Yohan Cabaye and Connor Wickham was really as inspired as it seems.
Swansea City, too, have started this campaign very much on the front foot, with Sunday’s 2-1 home win against Manchester United garlanding Garry Monk in yet more plaudits.
Significantly they do not rank among the summer’s big spenders. Their net outlay is around £8.5m and the star of the show against United, André Ayew, arrived on a free transfer from Marseille.
A classic identikit of a well-run club, Swansea are benefiting from years of nurturing stability, instilling a clear, compelling, playing philosophy, making sensible managerial appointments and, above all, scouting intelligently.
Whereas Sunderland, for instance, have overspent alarmingly on other clubs’ cast-offs down the seasons, the smart operators in the Liberty Stadium’s recruitment department apparently possess a sixth sense as to which players rejected by rivals are ripe for revival. for instance, Jonjo Shelvey, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Lukasz Fabianski cost considerably less than Sunderland shelled out for Adam Johnson, Jack Rodwell and Emanuele Giaccherini.
If Wearsiders have cause for despondency about their team’s position at the foot of the table with only two points, Newcastle fans are blithely unconcerned about a record of two draws from four games.
After the two Manchester clubs, Steve McClaren’s team rank as England’s biggest summer investors, ploughing nearly £50m worth of talent into the squad. Results may be mixed but early fixtures have been unkind and, already, season ticket holders are enthusing about the considerably more attractive football, increased commitment and improved defensive organisation choreographed by McClaren. The former England coach trusts such optimism will be justified. “Judge us after 12 games,” he says. “Early-season results are often strange.”
Slaven Bilic might agree. His new West Ham charges have won at Arsenal and Liverpool but lost at home to Bournemouth. Like Norwich and Watford, Eddie Howe’s players should probably not be assessed until the clocks have gone back and they start running out of the adrenaline that invariably fuels new arrivals during their first few weeks fresh out of the Championship.
“It’s not worth looking at the table until you’re 10 games in,” says McClaren. “It’s only then that you get an idea of where you might be heading.”
