Newcastle 1 Norwich 0: It was a ‘big, big win’, admits Alan Pardew

Alan Pardew hailed the significance of Newcastle United’s victory over Norwich City after Demba Ba netted the winner at St James’ Park on Sunday.

The Magpies had endured a tough start to the Premier League season after failing to win on their last three outings following an opening-day victory over Tottenham Hotspur.

But Hatem Ben Arfa’s pass released Ba, who produced a composed finish to net his third goal of the campaign after his brace at Goodison Park last Monday.

Papiss Cissé missed a 44th-minute penalty but Newcastle held on to claim three points, and Pardew was pleased by his side’s encouraging performance as they moved up to 10th in the table.

“It was a big, big win for us, but not the performance that we wanted,” Pardew told Newcastle’s website.

“The penalty miss definitely hurt us mentally, as to be 2-0 up [at half-time] we would have come into the dressing room in a different frame of mind.

“We were a little disappointed, knew we now had a battle on our hands and took that into the second half. We got a bit deep, a bit nervous at times and lacked a bit of ambition, but we will learn from that.

“It was a great goal though and a great first 40 minutes – we really played well then.

“There were some good performances in a kind of disjointed display.”

He added: “We are lacking a bit of training ground time. We are going from warm-down to warm-up to a game, and we are lacking a bit of fluency in our game.

“But the two centre-halves were terrific, Jonas was terrific as captain, Demba and Hatem were brilliant, and Harps didn’t have a lot to do but made a great save.

“There are signs there but we can’t really bring it all together. There were a lot of good things today though.”

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