Pardew: Newcastle need the fans to stick with them

Newcastle are desperately lacking in confidence, according to boss Alan Pardew.

The Toon Army never looked at the races in the 2-0 defeat at Southampton and only a combination of the woodwork and Tim Krul saves prevented the Saints from running riot.

And former Saints gaffer Pardew said his side's poor form is starting to worry him.

He told talkSPORT: "Personally, coming back to my old club I wanted to see a little bit more verve on the pitch than I saw today. I was very disappointed.

"We are really struggling for confidence. We got beat by the better side. They picked us off too many times on the break. Tim had to make a couple OF good saves just to make it two."

Newcastle exceeded expectations last season in finishing fifth and qualifying for the Europa League and Pardew admitted the club needed the fans to stick with them now more than ever.

"Our fans have travelled all the way down here, they had high expectations of this team for this year and quite rightly. We are going to need them now, we have really got a situation where we are low on confidence, we haven’t had a win, we keep conceding the first goal, the stats are starting to not look good in a number of areas."