BBC's new midweek football experiment 'The Premier League Show' offers a different look at the most popular football league in the world, and there actually is some good stuff rather than swapping just the Match Of The Day studio for a coffee shop.
Gary Lineker's sit-down interviews with Premier League managers are a highlight for sure, as his chat with Eddie Howe gave us a closer look at one of the more interesting men in football... So we were happy to see him grab the one and only Pards for a chinwag.
Alan Pardew is a divisive figure, but there's no doubting his ability to manage at the top level of English football.
During his time at Newcastle United, he did well considering the circumstances around his management in which most managers would have, and he directly addressed these difficulties to Lineker on the show:
I like to think that they've learned some lessons. I think Mike, at Sports Direct, has learned some lessons, I think he'd be the first to say that, and I think he's had to learn lessons on the football side.
I kept nagging him, kept telling him, I think the process is wrong, what they were doing. And I made that very clear behind closed doors, never made that public, but I don't think he'd have a problem with me saying it now.
But the be all and end all to come from it is that the vision of the manager must come first.
His criticisms are what the fans have been saying for years. It's financials first, the team second.
The player recruitment this past summer was clearly improved, and as a result Newcastle are sitting pretty atop the Championship, one point ahead of Norwich after 13 games.
Pardew looks far happier at Palace, but we will have to wait and see if Newcastle can get back into the Premier League before we see if Newcastle, or Mike Ashley rather, have indeed learned the lesson.
