Pardew is concerned where the goals will come from, and he is hoping his midfielders can rise to the challenge now he has lost Kevin Nolan and Joey Barton.
Alan Pardew: "He's 24, Leon Best, and in his last game, he scored two goals in the Premier League. That's very, very difficult against a good, defensive, tight side.
"His record for me is very, very good and I hope that continues."
"We are going into the unknown to a certain degree because a lot of the goals we created and scored last year are not in this team.
"But we have got a lot of new talent and that new talent is exciting and [those players] have shown that in games.
"We are going to be leaning on them to make us look a little bit different and to create a different type of goal."