Pardew staying but Llambias exit adds to Tyneside gloom

Newcastle boss Alan Pardew has insisted he is going nowhere after the resignation of managing director Derek Llambias plunged the club into fresh chaos.

The 51-year-old confirmed his intention in a brief message to the city’s evening newspaper as news of Llambias’ departure, which came in the wake of Joe Kinnear’s controversial arrival as director of football, emerged.

Pardew told the Chronicle: “I’m staying — to take the club up the league.”

It was the manager’s first comment since the circus which has accompanied Kinnear’s unveiling as the new senior executive in charge of all football-related matters at St James’ Park pitched tent on Gallowgate.

Pardew and Kinnear met for the first time since the 66-year-old Irishman was appointed yesterday, initial talks were amicable.

But it remains to be seen whether or not he and highly-rated chief scout Graham Carr can forge a working partnership with a man who has a high opinion of his own abilities, but whose return to St James’, where he was manager for less than six months during the 2008-09 season, has been greeted with incredulity by the club’s fans.

Llambias, however, has already voted with his feet and decided the time was right to end his five-year stay on Tyneside.

The former casino boss has played a key role in the day-to-day running of the club and was heavily involved in its transfer business, although some of those duties have now passed to Kinnear.

Llambias’ departure was announced in a statement issued at around 8.40am, 20 minutes before the fixtures for the new season, which handed the Magpies a tough start away at Manchester City, were published.

Llambias will not be mourned by many after his roles in the alienation of Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer, the stadium naming disaster and the Wonga saga in particular.

But he was a key mover in the positive steps the club took in the wake of relegation from the Premier League at the end of the 2008-09 season, including the implementation of the financial model which has seen the Magpies record a profit in each of the past two financial years.

Mark Jensen, editor of online fanzine www.themag.co.uk, said: “I can honestly say I never, ever thought I would think Derek Llambias leaving Newcastle would leave them in a weaker state than they were. But as I sit here today, that’s how I feel.

“I almost feel sorry for Derek Llambias. Anybody who doesn’t think that this is linked to the appointment of Joe Kinnear, I think they should be walking around with a big hat on saying, ‘I’m not right’.”