Root & Branch

The latest surprise announcement from the Valley re players being loaned out as well as possible transfers of Zheng Zhi and Amdy Faye finally crystalise a position that has been developing all Summer. The club has obviously had to raise revenue and slash costs in order to avoid Administration and, whilst this came as a something of a surprise to an initially disgruntled Alan Pardew, it looks like he's come to terms with the task and has now decided to make the most of it and purge the squad of those he considers to have have been negative influences in the dressing room.

I think if you look back on last season, our appalling form during the run-in, which Pards was unable to affect, must have been down to a significant level of dressing room discontent. The signing of the four loan players in January looks the catalyst for this, especially as they came into an already large squad with personal and club expectations that they would get games during their loan periods.

The ultimate failure to make the play-offs triggered the sale of our most valuable assets (Varney excepted) and it is very hard not to see this fuelling existing dressing room discontent and negativity about the club and probably about Alan Pardew as Manager. Pards has been in a very difficult place here; it was his decision to bring in the loanees, presumably in an effort to intensify competition and up our attacking options as we chased promotion. However, it looks like he didn't forsee the drastic action required during the Summer and was initially caught expressing his surprise whilst trying to defend his playing squad. The seriousness of the financial situation looks to have got worse or the expectations around it looked to have been managed by the Board as the Summer wore on.

Knowing that he would have to rely much more on the crop of youth players who were blooded at the end of last season when our promotion hopes had faded, Pardew made it clear that this senior pro cull would be an opportunity for some of them this year. As the cull has intensified that opportunity has grown and I believe Pards has got to the point where he has lost the critical mass of last year's first choice squad and now decided to take this opportunity to root out the remaining malcontents and start afresh. Interestingly he has spoken this week of having "built new teams" in his second seasons at Reading and West ham, although neither were as dramatic or enforced as ours. From a fans point of view, Jerome Thomas is not only one of the remaining big wage earners but also the most obvious of sulkers, so it's absolutely no surprise that his name was in the frame with the annoucement of more players to be loaned out. I am sure we would have sold him if there had been any interest,

I'm not, for a minute, saying that all of those sold were bad apples or had lost their motivation, but if Thomas joins Sinclair and Fleetwood on loan, there really are only a handful of survivors pre-Pards; Ambrose is injured so couldn't be sold or loaned; Fortune is playing but we nearly sold him to Stoke last year and he was offered a move again in the Summer and is now one of only two centre-halves left; Holland was Captain and Player of the Year last season - he's lost the Captaincy, is too old to command a fee and has always given a 100% when picked.

Sometimes new teams have to built and something was clearly wrong at the back-end of last season. We should face facts and recognise that we do at least have a Manager who has experience of having done this before. More importantly a promising crop of players have emerged and our financial position must be approaching stability. Promotion this season isn't a realistic option in the circumstances so we need to support the new team as it develops and see how far they can go this year.

Unless we have a collapse and are in trouble of relegation, I believe we need to stick with Alan Pardew and the fans need to back him. Forcing him out because we are mid-table at Christmas will only cost the club money we can't afford and we take another big risk because there aren't many better Managers than Pards who would take us on (with little funds available) and I include Alan Curbishley in that. When the sack comes for him at Upton Park he will want another PL job.

If our recent demise means the loss of the Premier League Glory Boys who have swelled our gates, then so be it. Perhaps the booing when we don't win games will recede as they inevitably move on.