Alan Pardew went quietly after he was called to Crystal Palace’s office in Soho on Thursday and told it was over. Though his departure – two weeks short of two years since the club paid Newcastle United substantial compensation to hire him – was another reminder of the brutality of football management, he could not say he was not given the money to do the job.

Despite Palace’s dreadful end to the last Premier League season, continental Europe was astonished by the club’s spending ambitions this summer. "Crystal Palace, l'incroyable offensive" ("Crystal Palace, the incredible offensive") read one headline in L'Equipe, in June, as the paper digested the side’s plans to pay out £31m for Marseille's Belgian striker Michy Batshuayi and simultaneously move for goalkeeper Steve Mandanda.

Batshuayi went to Chelsea, yet this was not the limit of the club’s ambition. Christian Benteke arrived a year after statement signing Yohan Cabaye, too, while popular mainstays such as Mile Jedinak and Yannick Bolasie left, and though the scale of the changes proved disruptive, it was felt that mid-table was the least the club’s owners would be looking for.

The results were not the only problem. The manner of the defeats seemed grimly consistent. The side habitually conceded poor goals from set pieces and often seemed to fade in the latter stages of matches.

And then there was the seeming indifference to the aspect of the sport which excited the two wealthy Americans co-owners, Joshua Harris and David Blitzer, whose £50m had funded that summer spent. They put one of their key American sports analytics specialists at his disposal but that individual found Pardew actively responded to his work once every six weeks.

It is one of the unspoken rules of working for new owners that you at least pay lip service to their ideas and some rudimentary homework would have told Pardew that analytics was fundamental to Harris, in particular. He has certainly not demonstrated it to be a fool-proof method. His Philadelphia 76ers basketball team became the ultimate analytics experiment, with a young Dutchman, Sam Hinkie, making them the only NBA team to have a scouting system totally dependent on analytics staff. They became all about what you can project in terms of talent, not what you see. And they tanked. Results were almost ridiculously disastrous and Henkie was fired.

That hasn’t removed Harris’ convictions. Which was why, when he and Blitzer established tentative contact with Sam Allardyce in late November, resigned to the fact that Alan Pardew would not turn around Crystal Palace’s decline, they were so surprised.

Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Show all 10 1 /10 Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Neil Lennon The current favourite has been out of management since stepping down from Celtic in May after four years in charge in Glasgow, his first job in management. Lennon, who led the Bhoys to the title in each of the last three seasons, is a fiery character on the sideline, often getting into spats with referees and SFA officials. Getty Images Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Keith Millen Has had four spells as a caretaker manager at Bristol City and Palace but only one full season in the top job, at City in 2010-11. Taking over from Steve Coppell, who left just one game into the season, City eventually came 14th under Millen’s guidance. Getty Images Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Steve Clarke Has jumped from a rank outsider to the second favourite to take over at Selhurst Park; Clarke was seen as harshly treated by many when he lost his job at West Brom in December 2013. The previous season they had finished 8th in the Premier League, but ended that campaign badly and started the next one even worse. He has plenty of experience as an assistant with stints at Newcastle, Chelsea, West Ham and Liverpool. GETTY IMAGES Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Tony Pulis Crystal Palace are in this self-inflicted mess because they didn’t give Tony Pulis – who worked a miracle at the club last season – what he wanted this summer. The Welshman is now being linked with a sensational return to the club with some bookies offering odds as low as 4.5. Obviously knows the club and current staff inside-out. Getty Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Martin Jol Another former Spurs manager, Jol’s big reputation took a significant knock after he was sacked from Fulham in December following six successive defeats. If he were appointed Palace would like the man who almost led Tottenham to the Champions League rather than the one that led Fulham to relegation. GETTY IMAGES Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Dermot Drummy A relative unknown, Drummy once had a contract with Arsenal but failed to play a league game for the Gunners before bouncing around non-league clubs. When he retired from playing at 35, he returned to north London as a coach, starting with the Under-16s, working with the likes of Jack Wilshere and Kieran Gibbs. He moved to Chelsea’s Under-16s and worked his way up the ladder, eventually taking charge of the Youth Team, then the reserves. Drummy was recently appointed to the role of international head coach Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Phil Brown The former Hull City boss is currently at Southend United, where he led the Shrimpers to the play-offs last season after years in League Two obscurity. Brown is best known for leading Hull to the Premier League, though some eccentricities, such as singing to fans on the day the club stayed up and holding a team talk on the pitch, have overshadowed the job he did at the club. GETTY IMAGES Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? David Moyes Manchester United still seem to be feeling the ill-effects of the Scot’s reign at Old Trafford. But Moyes got the job in the first place because he had been a brilliant manager at Everton for a decade, taking the club from relegation fodder to perennial top six contenders. Roberto Martinez’s success last season has futher tarnished Moyes’ legacy, but he remains a skilled manager. Getty Images Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Glenn Hoddle The former England manager has not managed any side since he left Wolves in 2006, spending the intervening years as a television pundit. Hoddle returned to football earlier this month when Harry Redknapp named him as a first-team coach at QPR. The Independent understands he has ruled himself out of the running. Getty Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Roberto Di Matteo Best known for a highly eventful spell in charge of Chelsea, where he won the FA Cup and the Champions League before getting sacked at the start of the next season, Di Matteo also had good spells as manager of MK Dons and West Brom.

It was around the time of the side’s astonishing 5-4 defeat at Swansea, administered by two Fernando Llorente goals at the death. Allardyce – whose attention to detail in job applications is always very impressive – despatched to them a detailed dossier. It included an analysis of the squad, with reference to their propensity for conceding late goals. It detailed his own managerial achievements in numbers and outlined what would be required in January. It was the significance he attached to data, as a key management tool, which was unexpected.

It was a meeting of minds. Allardyce was one of the trailblazers for the use of Pro-Zone more than a decade ago. The Americans’ conviction about the numbers has been reinforced by the success of Brighton & Hove Albion (currently second in the Championship) and RB Leipzig (second in the Bundesliga) who draw heavily on data.

Briefly, Pardew found a way to keep the wolves at the door. The strength of his relationship with the member of the Palace board who hired him, Steve Parish, helped and both men hoped the 3-0 win over Southampton would see the 55-year-old through.

It was Parish who provided the reminder of what Pardew has delivered in the past two years - guiding Palace from the relegation zone to finish in 10th place, their best ever Premier League effort, before taking the team to the FA Cup final at Wembley in 2016. But the scrambled draw at Hull City and defeats to Manchester United and Chelsea have maintained Pardew’s direction of travel.

For all of Allardyce’s progressive methods, there is a sense that Palace would like to make a more imaginative appointment. They were certainly interested in the Portuguese Viro Perreira in January 2015. Perreira is now with German side TSV1860 Munich and some Palace fans may prefer such an appointment.