If Alan Pardew doesn't offer West Bromwich Albion the 'new manager bounce' then what does he offer them?

The swagger and bravado was supposed to reinvigorate a team short of confidence and creativity but Pardew's Premier League record over the past 24 months is pitiful

Pardew has failed to propel West Brom any closer to safety (Getty)

What is the opposite of a new manager bounce?

Not a new manager drop, because West Bromwich Albion have not got much worse – how could they?

But it has been something of a new manager slide, from outside the relegation zone when he took over to second from bottom in the table, ahead of rock-bottom Swansea City thanks only to their marginally less dreadful goal difference.

But eight games into the Alan Pardew era at West Brom, we are still waiting for any kind of upturn, bounce, boost, or the slightest indication that things are going to change for the better. West Brom have taken four points, from creditable draws with Crystal Palace, Liverpool, Everton and Arsenal. They have scored just four goals: a close-range Gareth Barry consolation, Salomon Rondon’s strike against Stoke City, a fortunate Jay Rodriguez penalty and Tuesday’s big James McClean deflection that looped over Adrian and into the West Ham net. Their underlying numbers, according to analysts, have improved only marginally, and have now returned to the levels from the start of the season which, if you have a long memory, is the last time they won a league game.

Alan Pardew's side haven't won since he replace Tony Pulis as boss (Getty)

No one is expecting West Brom to play good football necessarily: they are just emerging from a long spell in the Tony Pulis straitjacket, they are fighting to stay in the Premier League and they do not have much by way of quality or confidence.

But the West Brom board had one big lever to pull this season – short of spending £50m in the January transfer window – to try to keep themselves in the Premier League. And they pulled it when they replaced Pulis with Pardew in November. And it is now fair enough to ask whether it has had the desired effect, or any effect at all.

Because you do not appoint Pardew for the long-term evolution of your football team. You appoint him for the short-term boost of his swaggering motivational style, his assertive front-foot football, the injection of belief he gives a squad. That was the story of his time at Crystal Palace, where, like at West Brom, he arrived mid-season, three years ago today. Pardew sparked Palace up into 10th place in 2014-15 but once his new manager effect wore off, the team slumped, finishing 15th the next year and only making it half-way through the following season before being dismissed.

Pards' problems

PL games since Jan 1st 2016

P 44

W 6

D 12

L 26

Even at Newcastle, Pardew’s best time was at the start, first keeping them in the Premier League and then winning the LMA Manager of the Year for 2011-12, his first full season at the club. Sure enough, his magic faded, the fans turned against him, and the slow descent lasted much longer than the exciting rise.

But that exciting rise is exactly why West Brom appointed Pardew, hoping that his motivational magic would rub off on these players just enough to keep them in the top flight. Eight games in, there is no evidence that it has. Or to take a broader view, his Premier League record over the last two whole years, since 1 January 2016, gives him just six wins and 30 points out of 44 matches, definite relegation form.

And relegation is where this this West Brom team are headed unless Pardew can discover some of that old magic, to get these players to believe in themselves again. He only has 16 games left to do it.