The fans will have their banners ready, and Saturday could well be D-Day for the Newcastle manager.
Following Saturday’s defeat at Stoke, there have been several reports which suggested, correctly, the manager found himself the target of anger by a number of senior players in the aftermath of a fourth consecutive defeat.
Captain Fabricio Coloccini was alleged to have verbally attacked Pardew minutes after the game had finished at the Britannia Stadium.
Interestingly, the Argentine later spoke to the club website and completely contradicted his manager’s assessment that Newcastle’s performance at the weekend was good and the team “controlled large portions of the game”.
Pardew said at the weekend he had no intention of walking away from his job on Tyneside, even if he admitted “there’s a lot of it against me at the moment”.
There is also no indication, as of yet, that Mike Ashley is contemplating a change.
Yet if Pardew is to survive he must come out of this week stronger than he entered it.
No manager can do his job if there is any sort of resentment within the first-team squad.
Especially if his captain and one-time ally has turned against him.
Pardew’s claims that Saturday’s performance was an improvement were thrown out by Coloccini.
The 32-year-old said: “We are very disappointed because we came into this from three games where we did not play well and then we didn’t play well again.
“It may have been a better scoreline but it was not a better performance than Southampton and Manchester United.
“They were lucky with the goal they scored but we lost again and it is not good enough.
“We have to improve and we have do that quickly before the end of the season.
“We know we have achieved our objective of finishing in the top 10, but we are playing with the Newcastle United shirt on and we have to have respect for that.
“We are trying to win every game, of course we are.
“We have to play with pride for this club and for the fans.”