Alan Pardew: “There are questions marks against us.
"It’s because we have lost a lot of goals out of the team from Andy Carroll and Kevin Nolan and a lot of assists from players such as Joey Barton and Jose Enrique since I’ve been here.
“But we have Demba Ba who has been on Ramadan and is going to get better.
“And there’s the creative flair of Hatem Ben Arfa, who has not been around the team since I’ve been here.
“To have Ben Arfa back and the option of adding a completely new look to our front line is going to be important.”