Humility
“When you’re the king, you can do anything.” This is the immortal phrase that has come to define Alan Pardew. The deposed Crystal Palace manager is alleged to have uttered these words in a restaurant, many years ago, to a West Ham fitness coach whose plate of dinner he had just stolen because it “looked better” than the dish Pardew had ordered. It’s a tale that seems to encapsulate the sense of entitlement Pardew radiates. When he lost matches, it was never his fault. When he won them, he seemed smug. Maybe it’s not Pardew’s fault; he might just have one of those faces. But it meant that few fans warmed to him over the years, and it’s the reason there were celebratory fist pumps scattered across the country at news of his unemployment.

Turning corners
Pardew is, on a scale like nothing seen before, a streaky manager. Whether it was winning streaks or losing streaks – once Pardew was on one, it was very difficult to get him off. So when things were good, they were great – a Papiss Cisse-inspired six-game winning run in spring 2013 very nearly took Pards into the Champions League with Newcastle. But when things were bad, Pardew would be painfully slow at turning things around. He prefers to see the highway spread out in front of him in a straight line – he’s the Forrest Gump of football management. Palace fans mainly experienced losing runs under Pardew – and six consecutive defeats this season made his position at Selhurst Park untenable.

Meeting raised expectations
Another curiously unbreakable pattern has followed Pardew throughout his managerial career, and we’re not talking about his side-parting. It’s that Pardew is a manager who thrives when the odds are stacked against him, but flounders when expectations are raised. He took unfashionable Reading to the brink of Premier League promotion, but struggled when he took a bigger Championship job at West Ham. When the Hammers were promoted he once again prospered as the underdog, but couldn’t build on it the following season and was sacked. At Newcastle, he won games when nobody expected him to, but stumbled as soon as things perked up. This peculiar Achilles’ heel is the very reason Pardew is a survivor. Whenever you think he’s dead and buried, he rises back up. But as Palace discovered, it’s a Catch 22. Because while Pards is great at steadying the ship, he can never take you to the “next level”.

Likeability
He tried, he really did. If you only read the transcripts of Pardew’s post-match interviews, he seems lovely. But somehow his platitudes came across as insincere – as a man painstakingly trying to counteract the power of his own throbbing ego. One that, left unshackled, would greet every personal triumph with a sexy dance like the one he unleashed at Wembley in May. Palace and Pardew seemed like a match made in heaven. The fact he had already made himself a hero as an Eagles player – when he scored a famous winner against Liverpool in the 1990 FA Cup semi-final – gave him extra slack as a manager. But even the uber-supportive Holmesdale Ultras were reduced to walking out of home matches in protest because they couldn’t stand him anymore. And the sad fact is that if Eagles fans don’t like Pards, then no one will.

Success
It’s all relative. Pardew gained promotion with Reading and West Ham. He won the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy at Southampton. He reached two FA Cup finals, the most recent just seven months ago. But he wanted more than that. A fiercely ambitious man who was touted as a possible England manager only this year, Pardew is driven by self-belief. Some have described it as arrogance. But his latest sacking – the fourth of his career – makes this dream of world domination seem more distant than ever. He may have acted like a King, he may have danced like a King, but there’s one thing missing. Pardew has never lead like a King.

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