Alan Pardew said Chris Brunt apologised to him for his outburst in the dressing room after last Saturday’s defeat against Huddersfield and has urged his West Bromwich Albion players to show “fight on the pitch” as he battles to hold on to his job.
Pardew’s future is on the line at Watford on Saturday after winning only one of his 14 league games, with the 2-1 defeat at home by Huddersfield leaving West Brom bottom and prompting Brunt to criticise the manager and some of his team-mates.
“Brunty came and saw me on Tuesday and he apologised for his outburst, which was purely frustration about not winning, and I understand that,” Pardew said. “I don’t have a problem with it. I have no problem with Chris Brunt or any player here and I would be foolish to sideline anyone and I won’t until I think discipline really has been broken. And at the moment apart from the incident in Barcelona [when four players allegedly stole a taxi], it hasn’t.”
Pardew, who has no intention of resigning, gave the impression he is prepared to take on board a few of the points Brunt and others made in the dressing room. “It was not just Brunty, the captain [Jonny Evans] and everybody else, myself and John Carver [the assistant manager] all had opinions on that performance. I’d be foolish and not a good manager if I didn’t listen to those comments and look at them in reflection and come up, hopefully, with some answers for Saturday.”
Brunt, who came off the bench against Huddersfield, is expected to start at Watford as Pardew looks for a reaction from his beleaguered squad. “I would like to see a little bit more controlled fight,” he said. “It is no good if you’re a boxer throwing haymakers every five minutes. You have to have some technique about what you’re doing in that ring, or else you’re going to get hurt. That is really where we have fallen down, I think.”
