Former Black Burn Rovers player, Robbie Savage has come out to recess the issue that surrounds him regarding Newcastle boss Alan Pardew as a “broken man”.

Far enough, the “broken man” issue did not go well with Pardew as he lay criticism on the former Premier League player who made comments on him in a BBC column.

Savage’s comment as reported on BBC website:
A Premier League player once phoned me up at half-time of a match that I was working on as a TV pundit to tell me to “get my facts right” about him.

He was injured and watching his team play on TV, and had heard me talking about a part of his game that I did not rate.

The player was keen to tell me that the statistics showed otherwise, but I had the figures in front of me and was able to tell him thank you very much but,
actually, I was right and my comments were fair.

I said it nicely and phoned him back after the game to speak to him too. He was fine about it.

That is a good example of my approach to being a pundit. I would never say something on TV or write anything in a column that I would not say directly or explain to the person concerned if I were talking to him.

Yes, sometimes I might shoot from the hip with my opinions – sometimes I get things wrong and sometimes I change my mind – some people might say I do that too often! But I have to be honest and say what I think.

I had a 20-year playing career and played more than 600 professional games, but I cannot put many medals on the table to show for it, so I cannot sit on the fence on some issues like some higher-profile former
players might.

Pundit comments are never personal
I can understand why Pardew took what I said to heart because I used to do the same with comments made about me.

I took plenty of stick from pundits as a player, and sometimes I was absolutely hammered, but my feeling was that I was there to be shot at.

It is the same now I am on the other side of the fence- and the same goes for managers as well as players.

But the one thing I never do as a pundit is have an agenda against somebody. None of my comments or criticisms are personal. I stand by what I said about Pardew after Newcastle’s 4-0 defeat by Southampton – I didn’t say he was a
broken man, I said he sounded like one.

He did sound dejected, although I have obviously never been in the situation he was in, coming out to face the media after a game where his players have
not performed. It must be very difficult.

I was surprised he picked me out to respond to, because I had heard a lot of people saying a very similar thing, but the important thing was the way that Pardew showed I was wrong about him.

He did not do that by criticising my comments, he did it with the way he came out fighting for his job in their draw with Hull last weekend.

Pardew did not hide from the crowd despite the protests that were planned against him, and he did not throw in the towel when his side went 2-0 down.

Instead, he made an inspired substitution that turned the game, bringing on Papiss Cisse for Emmanuel Riviere and seeing him score twice in the
last 20 minutes to earn Newcastle a point.

Afterwards, his voice was full of passion and energy, which was great to hear.
Last week I also wrote that it was hard to see him surviving in his job for much longer – I would be delighted if he proved me wrong about that too.

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