Hughton Out, Pardew In

Even though there was speculation, it was quite shocking to me when news broke that Chris Hughton was sacked as manager at Newcastle United. The football world would agree that Hughton did very well last season, leading the club right back into the Premier League by winning the Coca Cola Championship with relative ease, and was also doing fairly well this season. Hughton rightly deserved the opportunity to prove himself at the top level of English football, but once again we have witnessed a manager being sacked prematurely as a result of the impatience of club owners.

Newcastle's standing in the Premier League at the point of Haughton's sacking was 12th position with 19 points (only 5 of 21 promoted clubs to the premier league have achieved 19 points after 12 games), but apparently the Newcastle board was not satisfied. A statement coming out of the club - "the board feels that an individual with more managerial experience is needed to take the club forward".

Today we learn that Newcastle has hired Alan Pardew (if you ask me, a nonsensical decision based on their reasons for sacking Hughton) - with his only Premier League experience being that as manager of West Ham during the 05/06 season in which the club finished 9th and he was eventually sacked early in the 06/07 season after a poor run of results.

No doubt about it, the Magpies heirachy have taken a big gamble, and it is even a greater gamble with the fact that Pardew has signed a 5 year contract with the club.

At the beginning of the season most predictions would probably place Newcastle in a respectable mid-table position come the end of the season. My expectation still remain the same.