Alan Pardew urges his Newcastle players to ‘stand and deliver’

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/sep/17/alan-pardew-newcastle-stand-deliver-hull

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Alan Pardew has conceded he and his Newcastle United players must “stand and deliver” or face the consequences.

Hull City’s trip to St James’ Park on Saturday promises to be pivotal to Pardew’s future as manager and, albeit tacitly, he acknowledges he is fighting for his job.

Wretched form has seen Newcastle win only five games since 1 January, and none in the Premier League this season, and he accepts that appeals to be given time will no longer wash with increasingly disgruntled supporters.

“I don’t know about patience. This is a time to stand up and deliver,” said Pardew, whose side lost seven of their final eight League fixtures last season. “We have a home game against Hull where the pressure’s really going to be on us. We have to deliver. We’ve had a difficult start to the season; Saturday is an important game.”

Many pundits had expected Pardew to be sacked after last Saturday’s 4-0 defeat at Southampton. For the moment Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s owner, is sticking with a manager with whom it is believed he will dispense only should the club be deemed in relegation peril.

If results fail to improve that watershed moment is probably not far away and as Pardew posed with his squad for this season’s official team photograph on Tuesday some observers wondered how long it would be before a new one might need to be taken.

“Southampton was tough to take,” said a manager who is not quite sure where his team’s next goal is coming from . “As a group and individually we’re better than that and I take responsibility. It was a heavy defeat. It was a tough day for our fans, a tough day for the team and, certainly, a tough day for me.”

With Papiss Cissé still around two weeks away from returning to action following surgery to repair a broken kneecap, Siem de Jong out until January at the earliest after a thigh operation and Emmanuel Rivière struggling in the wake of his summer move from Monaco, Newcastle look alarmingly lightweight in attack.

“The worry is how many goals are we going to score?” said Pardew, displaying unusual candour. “We’re aware of that. We need to find a formula which will get us some goals. We’ve spoken about how important making a good start against Hull is because that’s something we haven’t been doing. We have to make sure we start well.”

Pardew could have done with De Jong – a £6m summer signing from Ajax who will be on crutches until early November – being around to fill the key No10 role behind the lone striker in his preferred 4-2-3-1 formation but he is almost equally upset to have lost Rolando Aarons for a minimum of six weeks.

The 18-year-old left-winger proved the brightest spark on the Tyneside horizon this summer and seemed certain to start at Southampton had he not damaged a hamstring while on England Under-20 duty. “The two injuries last week [Aarons and De Jong] were blows, particularly mentally,” Pardew said.

He is set to be confronted by an amalgam of abuse and protests from home fans demanding his head on Saturday when some pundits suggest he will run “a gauntlet of hate” but supporters are also planning a minute’s applause. It is intended to boost Jonás Gutiérrez’s morale. The Newcastle winger, who spent time on loan at Norwich last season, has revealed he has been receiving treatment for testicular cancer for more than a year and is undergoing chemotherapy in Argentina.