Alan Pardew: “We’ve been disrupted heavily by two or three things this pre-season.
“Perhaps they could have been avoided, I wouldn’t disagree with that.
“We’ve lost three players to impact injuries and that’s disrupted us, we can’t get away from that. But it happens, and it’ll have happened at other clubs. As a manager you have to accept it and move on.
“We’ve had a tour of America which I thought was very good in terms of the games. They were tough.
"Some of those internal flights weren’t ideal, something we should have done better.
“The visa problem with Joey we kind of foresaw, with Cabaye we didn’t. That could have gone better for us, because we really wanted him over there.
"And then we’ve had this situation (with Barton) which really stems from past history and Joey not getting a new contract.”
“I don’t think chaos is the right term that I would like to use at any football club, and I’m certainly not going to agree to that.
“But are we having a difficult week? Yes. Are we having a situation where we need to get our fans in a better place? Yes. Does the team need to improve on the pitch? Yes. I think that’s where we are.
“No, it hasn’t been the most perfect pre-season - but I’ve had pre-seasons like this before, where it hasn’t gone right, we’ve lost games and there’s kind of been a bad feeling.
"But then we’ve kicked off and it’s been okay and we’re off and running. Things can change just like that.”