Alan Pardew: “I need to make sure there’s some good news in the next three or four days, and that everybody starts thinking optimistically about this next season.
“If I was Fabricio Coloccini, I’d be looking for a good player, or maybe two good players, to walk in the door before we play Arsenal.
“I think the group is a tight group, and they’ll be ready for the campaign, but we must remember where we are.
“We are where we are – we’re a team that got promoted a year ago.
“Physically, all the players’ figures are better than this time last year, but mentally we’re not.
“I think we need to get one or two things resolved this week to help that.
“We’ve had a good season, but there were times last year when we were on the edge.
“We need to get players in to make sure we’re stronger than that.
“Hopefully, in the last 10 games of the season we’ll be stronger than where we were last season.
“We’ve been unlucky with a couple of injuries.
“Shane Ferguson, a bright spot last season, has missed pre-season because of an impact injury.
“Hatem Ben Arfa – who we got up to speed and looked great – had an impact injury, and Danny Guthrie, as well.
“We lost three good technical players. Fergie was a blow as I wanted to look at him at left-back and see if he could offer to cover for Jose Enrique or play there.”