Alan Pardew: “The opposition start their season next week – and that showed.
“I know they are a couple of levels below us. But they looked sharper.” And Pardew preferred to reflect on the positives.
The Newcastle manager said: “I was still happy with some of the performances. Sammy did well up top and scored a perfectly good goal.
“We showed some neat touches and our technical stuff was fine.
“Offensively we’re a little bit at sea. As you would expect the pitch was slow.
“We could not get the ball out of our feet and get it to our pace men. But it was a good work-out.”