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Crystal Palace player slates Alan Pardew on eve of return to Newcastle

8 years ago
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On the eve of his first return to St James Park, Alan Pardew has been slated by one of his own Crystal Palace players.

Chung-Yong Lee spoke to the media back in his native South Korea and had some interesting comments to make about the former Newcastle boss.

Lee has over 70 caps for South Korea and was one of Alan Pardew’s first signings, moving from Bolton to Crystal Palace only weeks after Alan Pardew jumped ship at Newcastle United.

Injuries have hampered the midfielder’s career at Palace but according to the player, his manager has been just as big an obstacle.

Interestingly, Lee says that after signing him, Alan Pardew told the player that he’d wanted to sign him while he was at Newcastle.

A few if his insights into how Pardew manages the Palace team, will resonate with Newcastle fans.

Chung-Yong Lee says that Alan Pardew ‘runs the ream with very short-term vision’, which leads to him overplaying certain players who end up injured. Something that we regularly saw at Newcastle, plus players were often rushed back too early from injury and ended up being out long-term.

The Palace player suggests that the way Pardew has managed his squad has led to the dramatic second half of the season collapse at Crystal Palace.

Lee says he is impressed by Pardew in training but ‘he is too hot tempered in matches’.

What was very noticeable at Newcastle was that in certain games and indeed in runs of games, the team could show up well – but once any changes were needed, it never looked like Alan Pardew had a plan B.

Chung-Hong Lee talking to Sports Seoul:

“Alan Pardew is very smart in training but he is too hot tempered in matches, so he even forgets how many substitutes are left.

“He told me to warm up, then we used all three substitutes, so I sat on the bench again. Five minutes later, he told me to warm up again so I told him there was no substitutes left. He just said: ’Oh, sorry.’

“Pardew runs the team with very short-term vision. We have a great squad but he plays the same players again and again until someone gets injured.

“Then his replacement cannot play well because he is playing for the first time in two months. I think that’s why we have not done well in the latter half of season.

Alan Pardew said he had wanted to sign me at Newcastle as well. It seemed that he really wanted to sign me so I decided to join Crystal Palace. But I got injured in January and returned in April.

“During that time, Crystal Palace did really well with Puncheon, Bolasie and Zaha. So my place was gone.

“I knew that I could not play much early on this season but the situation now is much more humiliating that I thought.

“Pardew made me train as a starter for the whole week and decided to leave me out on matchday, as an injured player who had not trained all week recovered and felt okay on the day. That was absurd.”

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