Four defeats in a row for the first time during his tenure is hurting Pardew, but the players seem to believe things are not far from improving.
Vurnon Anita: “It’s not nice when we keep suffering injuries and suspensions.
“These things can happen.
We must keep on fighting and keep the spirit up. We did very well at Stoke and we must keep that spirit high, bring it to the pitch.
“The league table is not a nice thing to look at.
"We must focus on the good things, learn from those, keep working hard.
“The positive things were that we were one-nil up, doing great, playing well, and I think we should try to forget the last ten minutes before the Wigan game.
“We must learn from our mistakes, of course, but it is also to learn from the positives too.
“There were plenty of those, we have to take the positivity to Monday.
“We worked very hard, we chased Stoke down very hard when we were out of possession. We must keep the faith even though we have lost the game in the end.”
“Everyone was very happy for Papiss to score. It was relief when we all ran over to him to celebrate with him,
“You can see we were also all relieved for Papiss. He has not scored many goals this season, as many as he would have liked, but he has been training hard to improve that.
“He scored a good goal and we were very happy for him and the team – until the last ten minutes! Papiss and Demba both worked very hard for us.
“We all have to take the positives out of our performances and go again on Monday. Papiss, Demba, everyone.”