Greg
Gus Poyet
Not always, form and momentum and confidence can often sustain a team at a higher level for a whole year. That's why it's called second-season syndrome, not second-half-of-the-season syndrome. You could argue that Pardew got a bit lucky too. Who here had heard of Patinkle Cisse before he joined? Would you have been happy had we signed him in January? I'm sure most fans would have derided his signing as a lack of ambition at the time. As it turns out he's hit the ground running and been a sensation. I'm sure we tried to sign better quality players than those we did get, but either the players we wanted weren't available for the money we had to spend, or simply did not want to join.
Anyone with knowledge of football that goes beyond England should have been aware of Patinkle Demba Cisse, the Bundesliga is a decent league these days and he had 37 goals in 65 games, better than one in every two games.