ALAN Pardew was not prepared to protect his makeshift Newcastle United defence after they failed to protect goalkeeper Tim Krul at Norwich City.

James Perch and Danny Simpson gave away height and weight to the Canaries’ front two, but Pardew still pointed the finger after Saturday’s 4-2 defeat.

He said: “When you are under pressure you are going to concede set plays, we just had to do better at them.

“We should have been a bit more competitive when the ball was being delivered, regardless of our centre-halves.

“When a team is missing centre-halves, you incentivise your side to put delivery in and go and attack it.

“There was perhaps a little more venom in them at set plays.”

The Newcastle manager is hopeful of having two key defensive players back for the next game, at home to Swansea City.

He added: “Cheick (Tioté) has a very good chance and Colo (Fabricio Coloccini) certainly, we think he will be back. He was touch and go on Saturday but we could not risk him.”

Pardew denied a third defeat in four matches showed Newcastle’s bubble had burst.

He said: “We went down to ten men and we were still in the game.

“We have a nice points tally but we hve come into a run against the top teams (in the previous three games) and we have lost players through injury.

“We are just having one of those little injury runs and it is affecting us this year.” Meanwhile, Pardew responded to comments from André Villas-Boas that he ought to have kept his thoughts to himself after Newcastle’s defeat to Chelsea.

He added: “Sometimes when you have a defeat you have to find certain reasons why you have had that defeat.

“It would have been more honourable of him if he accepted (David) Luiz should have been sent off like the referee did.

“The guy is new to the country and press and he is a bit under pressure. Maybe he could show a little bit more respect.”

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