Pardew is not a good manager. What he has been at times is a lucky manager.
This was certainly true at Reading where he had the resources at his disposal to go out and buy his way out of trouble. For instance, both Jamie Cureton and Anthony Rougier were bought to cover injuries for Nicky Forster and Martin Butler leaving him with the firepower to blast his way out of league 1 (Division 2 as it was then). Even that opportunity was nearly blown. Reading fluffed the play-off final in 2001, and the following season drew something like 11 games on the trot at the end of the campaign blowing a good lead in the title race to just scrape up in second place thanks to a late Cureton equaliser at Brentford.
The following season Reading finished in a play-off position in the Championship. Very admirable except much of that was achieved by playing one up front for most of the campaign, namely Nicky Forster, who was ligthening quick had the season of his life.
The luck ran out in the play-off semi final that year (Forster was deliberately crocked at Wolves), and Pardew legged it to West Ham the following September.
Once again it was the relatively large resources at West Ham that eventually got them back in to the Premiership, winning the play-off final against Preston after defeat in Cardiff the previous season. Without Bobby Zamora's winning goal he'd have been sacked then.
