Today

When you’ve supported your local team for over 20 years, it’s heartbreaking to be firmly in the ‘I hope we lose’ camp every week. It takes a special man (or men) to inspire such a betrayal, even if you know that the defeat is in the best interests of your team. Today, Newcastle are at home to newly promoted Leicester. Whilst wanting the Magpies to lose has, unfortunately, gone on for several months, today brings a new dilemma. Already in such a perilous league position, do we really want to lose this match?

The answer lies within a sub-question: if Leicester win, do we truly believe that Alan Pardew will be sacked? Personally, I don’t. I’m not being fooled again, after the Stoke defeat – that should’ve been the night. If today’s result doesn’t affect Pardew’s status, then we may as well cheer Newcastle to victory. Because anything but defeat pretty much consigns us to relegation. There’s no point in sacking Pardew if we’re going down anyway, the new manager needs a chance of survival.

Our upcoming fixtures are more devilish than Pardew himself but I fear that Ashley won’t pull the trigger until after December when it’s too late and the Leicester game is completely forgotten. If it has no impact, we may as well win and give ourselves a fighting chance. And yet, despite that, I still can’t bring myself to cheer him on, knowing how smug and self-congratulatory he’ll be post-match. The club’s new PR guru Keith Bishop will spin it into some heart-wrenching tale that our moronic fans will lap up.

It really hurts to be like this – I love this football club so much. I’m very much in the ‘short term pain, long term gain’ camp but so many fans have their heads firmly stuck in the sand. Look at the facts: one win from 15 games, the fewest PL goals scored in 2014, the most conceded and a staggering 36% of Pardew’s defeats have been by three or more goals. When we lose, we absolutely collapse. It’s now almost a weekly occurrence.

It’s took many years of gradual disillusionment and culminated with Pardew’s lies, excuses, abysmal form and terrible man management. His treatment of Hatem Ben Arfa and Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa was disgraceful. The only players defending him to the media are those who’d get nowhere the team under another manager. Pardew is only in a job because Ashley puts his egotistic and stubborn nature over money – he’s rich, another few million doesn’t matter!

If it wasn’t for widespread reports that he was about to be sacked, it might’ve already happened. If the Independent journalist didn’t reveal their drunken conversation pre-Stoke, it might’ve already happened. It could even be said that – as great and inspirational as the website is – the SackPardew.com protests might have had the opposite effect to what was intended. This attitude will cost him tens of millions next May but that’s ok because he wound up the Geordies. We’ll be the ones that suffer, yet again.

So how do I think today will go? Protests will be minimal, the atmosphere will be poor (as is often the case these days) and many older fans will simply shrug their shoulders at a limp, toothless draw or defeat before continuing with their Saturday pub crawl. Gabriel Obertan will start, with Remy Cabella on the bench. I would typically see this as a fluke 1-0 Cisse-accidently-bums-it-in bore, but I truly think Pardew has run out of luck. Leicester will get a draw at St James’ Park but Pardew will cling on to his job – so maybe a bit of luck! Newcastle will then be locked in a relegation dogfight which they should never have been in. Cheers for that, Pardew. It’s all your fault.