Alan Pardew sacking at Southampton questions the sanity of the game

What more could he do?

Trouble

Southampton were a club in huge trouble as they slipped down to the third tier of English football. They brought in the experienced manager Alan Pardew to steady the ship and try to turn things around. In his first season he was hampered by a ten point penalty that was imposed due to financial difficulties, yet he almost took his exciting young team to the play-offs.

He did take them to Wembley where the fans had a fantastic day out winning the Johnstone’s Paint trophy.

Favourites

They went into this season as hot favourites for promotion and after a poor start in which they lost to Plymouth, unluckily, and only drew with Orient, despite dominating the game and missing a host of chances, they finally came good with a 4-0 away win at Bristol Rovers on Saturday.

That win leaves them three points outside the play-offs with a game in hand, with forty-three games to play.

Relief

Alan Pardew described Saturday’s win as a big relief, as he needed to turn his fine young side’s potential into points and now had done.

It is against that background that the decision taken yesterday to sack Pardew, his assistant Wally Downes and the goal-keeping coach Stuart Murdoch looks to be just about the strangest and most stupid decision that has been taken in the already mad world of English football.

Ambitious

Chairman Nicola Cortese is an ambitious man and has made no secret of his wish to take Southampton back to the top and to establish them as a top flight club once again. The only problem with that is that it is difficult top see what Alan Pardew was doing wrong in the attempt to make that dream a reality.

Looking at the reaction of Southampton fans to the news, which included comments such as ‘bonkers, disgraceful, ridiculous, ludicrous, stupid and gutted, it would seem that nobody understands why this has happened.

Rumours

There have been rumours of problems behind the scenes and staff leaving the club due to difficulties with Pardew, but these are not confirmed and are not believed to involve the playing staff who are surely the most important people.

It was rumoured that Pardew would be sacked in the Summer but he wasn’t and his chairman backed him with money to sign several players to strengthen the squad. If there were problems with Pardew behind the scenes, why was this allowed to happen?

This is an decision that is impossible to understand and makes you wonder about the sanity of the game we all love so much.