IF Alan Pardew hadn’t been a football manager, he would have made a pretty good salesman. Not quite ‘selling snow to the eskimos’ standard perhaps, but certainly slick enough to persuade a few pensioners to let him chase up their mis-sold PPI.

I remember one press conference from his time at Newcastle United when he was asked to comment on the mounting fan pressure on then-Blackburn boss Steve Kean. With the TV cameras on, he spoke eloquently about Kean’s difficult position and the unrealistic expectations that were being piled on most managers.

Then, off the record with the written press, he delivered a withering character assassination of someone he clearly felt had behaved dishonourably to get his job. Then once the cameras went back on, it was ‘Well, you’ve got to have sympathy for the position Steve’s in…”

That was Pardew, always one step ahead of the game and always willing to adopt whatever identity would suit him best. He spent five years in charge of Newcastle, and I’m still not sure I learned anything substantive about him, other than the fact that his wife liked show-jumping.

All of which makes it difficult to get a handle on him and his time at St James’ Park. His reign will be thrust into particular focus when Newcastle visit his current club, Crystal Palace, tomorrow, leading to an inevitable debate over whether his time on Tyneside should be deemed a success, and whether the Magpies would be in a better position if he was still in charge.

There are plenty of Newcastle fans who will be infuriated that such a suggestion is even being aired. Time can be a great healer, but you don’t have to delve too far into the memory banks to recall the bitterness and acrimony that accompanied the dying days of the ‘Sack Pardew’ campaign, or the vitriol that was being heaped on the former Newcastle boss before he opted to jump ship and return to South London.

In the eyes of his detractors, Pardew was a busted flush by the time he left Tyneside – a puppet who had become debilitatingly entangled in his masters’ strings. He had fallen out with too many of his most talented players, or stood idly by as they were sold. He refused to stand up to his employers when it came to the cups, and compliantly acted as Mike Ashley’s mouthpiece whenever anything controversial occurred.

The Northern Echo:

He was repeatedly out-thought in the derby, had developed a functional, long-ball game that did not play to Newcastle strengths and was regarded as a touchline embarrassment thanks to his unseemly clashes with David Meyler and Manuel Pellegrini in particular.

Many still regard his departure to Palace as a glorious abdication, even if it did usher in the disaster of the John Carver regime.

Yet as the months tick on, and Newcastle’s fortunes stubbornly refuse to improve, perhaps it is time for at least a partial reassessment of Pardew’s merits. Not a complete rewriting of history, but maybe a revision of at least a couple of chapters to acknowledge the uniquely challenging environment in which a manager (or head coach) of the Magpies is asked to work.

Steve McClaren has been in his role for less than six months, yet he has already found himself battling to dismantle a number of the obstacles that proved so problematic to Pardew.

Take this week’s reports of heated exchanges in the dressing room and training ground for a start. Just as Pardew would privately hint at how difficult it was to motivate and control a clique-ridden squad comprised of egotistical youngsters recruited from overseas, and promised that their time on Tyneside was a brief stop-over on the route to bigger and better things, so McClaren is quickly learning that management at Newcastle is like trying to keep a lid on an especially unruly classroom.

Having tried the carrot of an arm around the shoulder in the early months of his reign, the former England and Middlesbrough boss has found himself resorting to the stick. We’ll see if it works tomorrow, but on all available evidence, I wouldn’t be holding my breath.

Ideally, McClaren would like to bring in a few players of his own when the transfer window reopens. In a perfect world, they’d boast considerable Premier League experience. Andros Townsend perhaps? Or maybe Jonjo Shelvey?

Pardew also wanted Shelvey, but he was presented with Vurnon Anita instead. He recommended Darren Bent or Rickie Lambert, and got Emmanuel Riviere. Such is the way of things when a manager’s transfer remit is restricted by an over-arching policy that has repeatedly been proved to be flawed.

Speak out about it then? As Pardew quickly discovered, if you do that at Newcastle, you rapidly get put in your place. Infuriated by the decision to sell Andy Carroll and not replace him, Pardew was critical of the club’s actions in the immediate aftermath of that deadline day. His words did not go down well, and he was ‘reminded’ of the limits of his coaching role. From that point onwards, he wrapped himself up in riddles at his press briefings.

The Northern Echo:

McClaren is already having to walk a similar tightrope. Last week, he was asked about the state of contract discussions with Ayoze Perez. His mute response suggested he either didn’t know the answer, or he wasn’t allowed to say. Goodness knows how he’s going to keep his employers happy once some more pressing questions are raised in January.

At least he might be allowed to field a full-strength team in the FA Cup at the turn of the year, although even that can’t be taken as a given until it actually happens. If Newcastle are still hovering around the relegation zone, perhaps other considerations will intervene.

It all sounds grimly familiar, but such is life under Ashley and his right-hand man Lee Charnley. The conditions can hardly be described as unworkable, but they’re hardly conducive to a manager or coach being able to pursue their preferred course either.

Perhaps Pardew and McClaren will swap stories on the subject in the manager’s office in the wake of tomorrow’s game. Knowing Pardew’s ambition, he’ll probably ask a few questions about the England job too.

He still has plenty of detractors on Tyneside, but in the eyes of much of the rest of the country, he escaped from the Newcastle job with his reputation intact. Perhaps, in time, that will come to be regarded as his biggest achievement.