Pushing to spend big money on a big man up top doesn’t necessarily suggest a desire to move to a more progressive style, and of course if he gets those instructions from above he would in kind push for players within that framework that he wants/needs to carry it out. I don’t deny that he had the resources on his hands.
You kind of covered all bases with that comment, you go on to acknowledge Parish had been saying those same things publicly, that Pardew stated Parish had told him in the boardroom, but brush off it’s impact.
But it’s impact can’t be overstated. Any wholesale change like that, in the circumstances we were in, takes time and usually results in a dip before the payoff. Especially given that it wasn’t his own decision, surely he should have then been given some bandwidth to actually implement it in its entirety.