THE PARDEW COUNTDOWN: You're Not Very Good
Last updated : 31 March 2004 By Rob Cooper
The 43-year-old returns to the Madejski Stadium on Saturday, confidently predicting that his team will make a strong end of season finish and secure a top six spot.
Despite having an illustrious past (well a trio of FA Cup victories a generation ago) Alan Pardew's West Ham side have stuttered and stalled this season, failing to live up to pre-season predictions suggesting they would take the division by storm.
The Hammers currently sit in a healthy fourth place, but with the likes of Wigan, Ipswich and Reading snapping at their heals a play-off finish is by no means secure.
Yet Pardew asserts that West Ham are better than the Royals. This is despite the fact that the Upton Park side have sold England internationals David James and Jermain Defoe in recent months only to replace them with Premier rejects Stephen Bywater and Bobby Zamora.
"I generally feel this side is stronger than the Reading side I had last year which got to fourth place," Pardew extravagantly proclaimed, speaking to Teamtalk.com.
"People have criticised it but it's a healthy league. Our run-in is good but with this league you can never tell. We haven't quite had the quality to overcome teams who are resilient against us but we've learned from our mistakes."
Pardew's latest anti-Reading statement is sure to make Saturday's Madejski Stadium reception all the more hostile. Few fans will see any reason to forgive him for the manner in which he walked out on the Berkshire side last September.
But the question that remains is, following these arrogant statements, will he sit in the dug out on Saturday, or will he opt for the relative sanctuary of the directors box, with John Madejski?
