Alan Pardew: "He shouldn't have played today, really. My medical staff didn't agree that he should be included today - I think he has trained five days.
"But when you are experienced - myself and [assistant manager] John [Carver] looked at each other on Thursday, I think it was, and your eye tells you sometimes that the player is fresh, he's bright.
"Of course he's not ready for 90 minutes, but he knows how to carry the jersey.
"I don't expect the supporters to have been supporting me or in any way wanting to cheer for me personally, but I think they just took a view of loving their football club and just seeing what happened today, and I think we did enough on the pitch to win a few friends today.
"I think our fans are realistic - they know the top six is beyond us. We can't compete with those clubs at the moment. But we should be competing for seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th, 11th, we have proven that we can do that in the past.
"We are well short of it at the moment and I am not going to jump up and down here for a 2-2 draw at home to Hull, but it's a stepping stone to that area where this club needs to be."