Pardew Pre Match: Players Weren't Used To The Criticism

Alan Pardew has told the media today that his side need to force the game against QPR this afternoon and that they are definitely playing to win. This could be an interesting performance, when recently we seem to have been playing for a draw rather than pushing forward to achieve all three points. The side's last Premier League win was six games ago against Fulham when Cisse scored in the 94th minute, the win before that came in early March also from a last minute goal from Cisse. Pardew has said that the players have been the target of a level of criticism that they were not used to. Today his players need to take the criticism to heart and prove the fans wrong by winning and staying in the Premier League.

Pardew said;

"The players have had to work hard and force games and we have to do that at QPR. Get ourselves a win. Get ourselves a result any shape it comes in and I think against Arsenal, a home game, I think we have got a chance of a result.

We’ll definitely be going to QPR to win. It’s a strange scenario, the whole bottom of the league. You can talk about Southampton and Sunderland, Norwich have got a massive game as well.

It’s a very remarkable way it is going to end but, for us, we don’t want it to go to the last game. That’s why we want to win. You learn in adversity as much as you learn in victory, sometimes more, and this has been a year when we’ve had adversity at crucial times.

We had a terrible run before Christmas, terrible injury problems and this back end of the season, a level of criticism that the players probably weren’t used to. Since I’ve been here, it’s been milk and honey a little bit for most of them, so I think we’ve all been a little bit shocked by that.”

MATCH PREVIEW: QPR V NEWCASTLE UTD