Alan Pardew believes he had his “spirit banged down” by Newcastle United supporters during his time in charge of the club.
The now-Crystal Palace boss also claims it is “easy” to convince players to join the Eagles, citing Yohan Cabaye as an example of that.
It is almost a year since Pardew departed St James’ Park in order to return to south London, and he insists moving back to Selhurst Park has rejuvenated him.
Speaking on The Big Interview with Graham Hunter podcast, Pardew said: “There was no way I could say my spirit was high at Newcastle at the end – it wasn’t.
“They’d (the fans had) banged me down, banged my spirit down. And a lot of my management is about my spirit and my front foot, let’s come on, we can do it, we can over-achieve – that’s what I’m about.
“Of course this environment (at Palace) is perfect for me, I knew it would be perfect for me.”
During his four years on Tyneside, Pardew almost qualified for the Champions League with the Magpies in 2011-12, but he also flirted with relegation on a couple of occasions.
The 54-year-old admits part of the reason he left Tyneside was because he thought the team were “over-achieving”, but some fans believed they were “under-achieving”.
He added: “I tried to put on that pitch at Newcastle an entertaining team. At times, it wasn’t, for sure.
“At times we struggled, we lost players to injury, we didn’t invest enough.
“For all those reasons we had some sticky periods.
“But in my last game there I knew there was a possibility this might open up to me this place (Palace), and we (Newcastle) played Everton and we won, we were ninth in the Premier League.
“I looked at the Press the next day and the social media – because social media is a massive part of the feeling of the group, it really is, you can’t get away from it I’m afraid. It’s the same here (at Palace), social media plays a big part now.
“So I looked at it (after the Everton game) and it was like: ‘We’re under-performing.’
“I thought we were over-performing in the end so really I knew it was the best time to give them (Newcastle) a new start and me to move on.”