Perhaps the acrimonious circumstances in which Chris Hughton was sacked last season makes Alan Pardew hard to be warm towards. A manager whose career started with great promise, before curtailing with underwhelming spells at Charlton Athletic and Southampton, Pardew was perhaps seen as a bemusing choice by the Newcastle fans when he was unveiled, he only received 5.5% of the vote on a SkySports poll that attracted more than 40,000 fans.

Cynics suggested he would be no more than Mike Ashley’s “yes-man”, but the sometimes controversial manager has gone quietly about his business, astutely building a team that is looking incredibly hard to beat.

With the eighth round of fixtures concluded in the Premier League, there remains only three teams who have yet to experience the bitter taste of defeat. The top two of Manchester United and Manchester City are the most obvious, but lingering just behind in fourth spot is Alan Pardew’s Newcastle United. The Magpies have enjoyed a brilliant start to the season, picking up 16 points from their opening fixtures, which has included tough away trips to Sunderland, Aston Villa as well as this week’s tough scrap with Tottenham Hotspurs, where Shola Ameobi earned Pardew’s charges a point.

It would be easy to forget that Newcastle have lost a number of key players over the last 12 months. Alan Pardew attracted a great deal of criticism for offloading Andy Carroll in January last year, and his transfer policy was also scrutinised in the summer when he allowed then captain, Kevin Nolan, to move to West Ham United. Amongst the others to leave the club were the likes of Joey Barton and Jose Enrique. These are players who were viewed as being incredibly important to Newcastle’s hopes this season, and their departures rightly caused concern amongst Newcastle fans and the media. How much input Pardew had into these decisions, particularly the sale of Carroll, is debatable, but in football, the buck always stops with the manager.

Surely then, it is time that Alan Pardew gets the recognition his clever recruitment deserves. Perhaps a sense of injustice continues to prevail after the sacking of Hughton, but it is impossible to deny that Alan Pardew is doing a more than commendable job at Newcastle. In his time at the club, he has lead the team to wins over Liverpool, a draw with Arsenal after being four goals down, a draw at Stamford Bridge, and now an eight game undefeated streak.

Factor in the loss of so many big players, and the results look all the more impressive. The signings of Marveaux, Obertan, Santon and in particular Cabaye and Demba Ba have looked great recruits thus far, all playing their part in Newcastle’s impressive start to the season, slotting in where Barton, Nolan and Carroll once looked irreplaceable, launching the club to its best start in years.

There are obviously tougher tests to come, particularly in November when Pardew will face the tricky task of negotiating matches against Manchester United, Manchester City and Everton, but with points being taken off Aston Villa, Tottenham and Arsenal thus far, this is a much more resolute Newcastle outfit than we have seen in recent times. He might not have been the most popular guy for the job, but Alan Pardew is making encouraging progress, delivering a team that the Geordie nation can be proud of.