Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew has said that he is extremely confident that he will remain as the manager of the club next season after overseeing a very poor campaign. Newcastle were one of the surprising teams of last season as they almost managed to snatch a top four place at the end of the campaign.
However, several stars from last season have heavily underperformed this campaign. This coupled with the loss of players like Demba Ba has meant that Newcastle could only finish 16th in the table.
For long periods of the season, Newcastle were under the threat of relegation. As a result, there is a lot of pressure on manager Pardew especially because he spent a lot of money on several French players during the January transfer window. After the 1-0 defeat against Arsenal on the final day of the season, Pardew said that it has been a very difficult season, but he is hoping that owner Mike Ashley does not consider sacking him. Newcastle have suffered very bad defeats this season, while the loss against Arsenal was the ninth home defeat of this campaign.
The 6-0 defeat against Liverpool and 3-0 defeat against archrivals Sunderland are also sore points of the season for Newcastle.
“I’m pretty confident I’ll be the manager here. I love being the manager. I will be speaking to Mike [Ashley, owner] and Derek [Llambias, managing director] this week to make sure we get a response and a reaction. He can tell me where he’s coming from and we can clear the air about how we want to take it forward. He could turn around and say, ‘sorry Pards, see you later and thanks very much’. He could do that if we don’t make it, he could do that if we make it,” said Pardew.