For the first four months of the season, Alan Pardew was lauded at Selhurst Park. The former Eagle had taken Crystal Palace into fifth place in the league, and would have been the story of the season had Leicester not been three places ahead of them.
But Palace have only taken eight points in 2016, and have gone from fifth, to fifth from bottom.
Why? What went so right in the first four months that went so badly in the next four? According to Palace winger Lee Chung Young - it's all Pardew's fault.
The Korean forward has seen his minutes cut drastically since the turn of the year, and launched a quite remarkable rant at his manager as he attempts to engineer a move away from Selhurst Park. He lays the blame for the slump squarely on Pardew, saying that his tactics of over-using certain players and not rotating his side enough means that they have run out of steam:
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.
Lee then revealed that Pardew doesn't pay enough attention to his bench in matches - forgetting how many subs he's used in a game.
Pardew is very smart in training but he’s 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.’
Despite signing with Palace until 2018, Lee says he's trying to leave the club after a season that he brands 'humiliating'. He assumed he'd be given more chances to impress after Pardew tried to sign him for Newcastle as well - but tells another story of how shoddily treated he's been:
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. That was absurd. I think I did well last winter when I played three games in a row against Bournemouth, Stoke and Swansea. When Pardew substituted me out, even the fans booed.
Ah Alan. It's hard not to be on Lee's side on this one.
