• Premier League

Alan Pardew and the mythical role of the magical manager

Alan Pardew braves the elements - but it was vitriol pouring down from the stands that is his biggest concern © Getty Images

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It's vital that a manager in trouble gets seriously wet. Umbrellas are out, ever since Steve McClaren took that supremely sensible option during his last match in charge of England. They called him "the wally with the brolly", he was sacked the next morning and no football manager has dared to use one ever since.

So there was Alan Pardew, wet through as if he didn't already have enough troubles, standing on the touchline as Newcastle United went down to Stoke City. Newcastle supporters helped with the cheery atmosphere by chanting "we want Pardew out". Stoke supporters, not wanting to miss out on the opportunity to make a bad situation worse, sang the traditional ditty "Sacked in the morning". Out there in the rain, Pardew looked like Lear on the heath.

Up in the stands, Newcastle's owner, Mike Ashley, sat proud-bellied and remote. He had informed the press that Pardew would indeed be sacked if Newcastle failed to beat Stoke, though he subsequently explained that this was a joke. Pardew indicated that he had heard funnier ones.

And so one of the great rituals of football continues to unfold before us in its time-honoured way. It seems that we need a manager to tear to pieces every now and then. Good for morale. For the supporters involved, it gives a glorious illusion of power: almost, as if supporters were able to do something beyond paying.

All journalists love a good sacking: weeks and weeks of story unfolding: first the build-up, then the sacking itself, then the search for the new manager, then his appointment, then his honeymoon period and then, if you're lucky, a series of bad results and then the whole cycle can begin again.

We say that a sacking is inevitable, that so-and-so "has to go", as if we were talking about a law of physics: that once the process has started, there is no way in nature in which it can be halted, still less reversed. But it's inevitable only because it has become an established pattern.

It's been demonstrated that sustained success in football, as in most things, comes from continuity. Liverpool's great days were founded on succession, a continuing tradition of excellence. Manchester United dominated the Premier League era under a single manager whose one great failure was in succession planning. Arsenal have been consistent - mostly just a shade below the highest level - by sticking with the same manager.

So with these very obvious templates to follow, most clubs take the view that the more managers they have in the year, the better. It's all part of the great and complex mythologies of leadership. Jack Colback of Newcastle had a half-volley with the goal open before him and begging: alas, he hit the post. Had he done the decent thing, Pardew would, of course, be a much better manager.

Leadership fascinates us. That's why football has taken the power from the captain, who must confuse the issue by playing, and given it to the manager. His job is a pure exercise in leadership - in power, if you prefer. He takes the credit for every win and the blame for every defeat and never kicks a ball.

We give successful managers credit for the most outrageous things, because we really want them to be true. Some people were inclined to give Sir Alex Ferguson the credit for Andy Murray's victory at the US Open and his subsequent win at Wimbledon. Certainly the two met, but the idea that Murray was out there playing a better forehand down the line his because he had a chat with a football manager seems to me to be pushing things.

And if that were not enough, Ferguson was also given credit for winning the Ryder Cup for Europe last weekend. He had a chat with the team, but it seems unlikely that he was the difference between winning and losing.

But we love the idea that he could: the idea that one man, by means of his brilliance, his charisma, his power, can make extraordinary things happen. You seldom read anything about Jose Mourinho without coming across the word "magic". Sober, sensible journals and respected commentators use the word without irony or inverted commas: as if they were reporting the doings of Harry Potter for the Daily Prophet.

It's clear that there is a certain flight from actuality involved here. If the job description is for a messiah or a miracle-worker then mere humans are more likely to fail than not. As a result, a manager who seems to lack magical powers will get vilified. You obviously lack magical powers if your team loses: and it's the nature of the Premier League to produce 19 losers every year. The manager becomes like the fuse in an electrical circuit. A fuse doesn't actually do anything. Its function is to be the one weak spot, so when anything breaks it's always the fuse. So you replace it - with something equally fragile, equally disposable.

Leadership is not a complete mirage. Some do it better than others. But we adore to build up the mythologies: how a team can play poorly in the first half but really well in the second because of the words of the manager. He threw the tea-cups, perhaps, or he gave a few individual "the hairdryer".

Such a man is adored as much as he is feared: they'll go through fire for him, they'll die for him, they trust the boss to lead them through hell and back. And then the same man will have a run of poor results and he becomes a fool, a simpleton, a liability to be disposed of at the earliest opportunity.

It's probably - certainly - not the best way to produce the most successful possible football teams. But the process of worshipping some managers and destroying others satisfies a much deeper need in footballkind. It's the opposite of what we used to do in the Middle Ages. These days we adore the witches: it's those without magical powers we burn at the stake.

Sir Alex Ferguson was given credit for Europe's Ryder Cup victory © Getty Images

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Simon Barnes was Chief Sports Writer at The Times and UK Sports Columnist of the Year in 2001 and 2007. He writes about a wide variety for ESPN.co.uk, as well as ESPNFC.com and ESPNcricinfo. He has written more than 20 books including The Meaning of Sport and three novels. On Twitter he is @simonbarneswild

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