Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers feels Newcastle United are only realising the value of Alan Pardew after he left the club to join Crystal Palace earlier this year.
Pardew left Newcastle to join Palace in January this year and has transformed the club from being relegation battlers to comfortable mid-table dwellers.
While Newcastle did finish fifth in the 2011/12 season, in the subsequent seasons Pardew failed to recreate that form and was also forced to sell his best players to balance the books.
The former Palace player also shared a chequered relationship with Newcastle fans, who were not always supportive of their manager and criticised him for failing to touch the highs of the 2011/12 campaign.
However, since he left, Newcastle have lurched from one disaster to another and with two games left to play, they are fighting to stay in the Premier League.
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Rodgers is all praise for his Palace counterpart and believes he has done a great job at Selhurst Park since taking over the reins of the club in January.
The Liverpool boss feels Pardew also did a very good job at St. James’ Park and indicated that the Newcastle fans must be ruing the fact that they didn’t support him wholeheartedly while he was there.
“He's done exceptionally well since he's gone in there”, Rodgers told Liverpool's official site.
“But it's not a surprise to me because he did exceptionally well at Newcastle United. Sometimes it's only when people leave that you can really analyse and see the job they did.
“I thought he did an incredible job – if you think, he took them to fifth in the league with the resources and everything he was working with.”
Liverpool will be facing Crystal Palace later today which will be Steven Gerrard’s final game at Anfield.
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