OUR columnist and Five Year Plan fanzine editor ROB SUTHERLAND on why - unlike previous managerial appointments - Alan Pardew represents a long-term proposition for Crystal Palace...
THE road to Premier League safety is a long and arduous one, subject to potholes and bumps that you can't always prepare for, let alone expect.
Money and transfers can smooth that path ahead, but just as you'll see your local council fill the gaps with temporary solutions that erode as quickly as they're put in place, it takes time and a plan to make sure you get to that destination. Neil Warnock was a temporary solution, Alan Pardew is the long-term answer.
Make no mistake, in Pardew, Crystal Palace have a person capable of navigating the treacherous route to safety. But even he, a manager who has years of experience in the Premier League, will sometimes hit those potholes. The result against Newcastle United was one of those. As was, to some extent, the result against Everton.
Because his former side, for all the talk of having great players and a side capable of much better than their league position indicates, were as awful as Sunderland and Aston Villa - two sides that weren't held to account by a ponderous Palace team.
In fairness to Newcastle, they came to Selhurst Park with a spoiling game plan - its a rare sight to see a side content with taking a 0-0 draw after 15 minutes, but Newcastle did just that. At 1-0 up, thanks to a goal that wasn't deserved, that game plan took on a more defensive shape.
Where the Palace side of Warnock might have repeatedly tried the same tactics over and over again, in the vain hope it might somehow work, Pardew saw fit to make a change and, by introducing Yannick Bolasie, he found a player capable of a single moment of brilliance that won the club a point. Frustration lies in the disappointment of knowing that, like Villa and Sunderland, we should have taken more from the game.
It isn't the first time that Pardew has made a game-changing substitution and it won't be the last - proof as to why having a manager of his calibre will help our long-term ambitions. And while the club still have a fair distance to go before safety is achieved but with Super Al finding the way, the chances of getting to where we want to be are greatly improved.
