Pards: We were just rank bad
WEST BROM manager Alan Pardew stripped Jonny Evans of the captain’s armband after the shameful ‘taxi-gate’ episode which has rocked their club.
Evans, Gareth Barry, Jake Livermore and Boaz Myhill admitted on Friday they were the foursome involved in the incident which took place while the Baggies were in Barcelona last week.
Evans and Barry played in the FA Cup fifth-round defeat by Southampton, but the Northern Irishman’s position as skipper in the long term is under threat after Pardew handed the armband to Gareth Mcauley.
Pardew said: “Because of the incident there was a problem about selecting my strongest team.
“I decided to do that but I felt I needed to make a little bit of a statement.
“I’ll have to have a look at whether or not it’s for one game only.
“All over the Christmas period I cancelled everything — we hadn’t really done anything socially. The guys’ professionalism, timekeeping and everything has been spot on.
“But we’ve had this one crazy evening and it doesn’t reflect the work we do. That’s massively disappointing but we can’t get away from it.
“Obviously I was furious at what happened but at the same time I’ve got to stay faithful to the players and give them a chance to remedy the situation.”
The Baggies are bottom of the Premier League and Pardew said: “Now there’s 11 cup finals for us, starting next week.”