Newcastle warned not to be complacent

The Magpies will head for Wolves on Saturday still sitting in fourth place in the Barclays Premier League table and unbeaten in eight games in all competitions since the beginning of the new campaign after Saturday’s 3-1 win over Blackburn.

But while confidence is high at the club’s training ground, feet are being kept very firmly on the ground.

Pardew said: “It’s not about a pat on the back for anybody because that is always very, very dangerous. We talked about that after the game and at half-time.

“It’s very, very important to just keep doing the disciplines we have got.

“The club is in really good health at the moment, and it would be nice to have a season where there’s a really good feeling about the place.

“We have only just started and hopefully we can continue the feeling we had on Saturday.

“If we keep our discipline all the time, we are going to win more than we lose this year because we have got real quality.”

Pardew has found himself cast in the role of buffer between fans angry at the club’s perceived lack of investment, and owner Mike Ashley and managing director Derek Llambias, who insist they have spent a significant proportion of the £35m the club collected in return for striker Andy Carroll in January.

Saturday provided further evidence of the wisdom of Newcastle’s latest recruitment drive with Senegal striker Demba Ba plundering a match-winning hat-trick, his first goals in a black and white shirt.

French midfielder Yohan Cabaye too has impressed in recent weeks, while Sylvain Marveaux and Mehdi Abeid proved there is a certain depth to Pardew’s squad.

Hatem Ben Arfa’s return from injury – he made his first Premier League appearance in almost a year as a replacement for Ba – will add another weapon to Pardew’s armoury.