Alan Pardew: "Life could be better because the injury front is not looking too good this week.
"But we've got a chance of having a physical and mental rest, and then will start for Stoke on Monday, when I hope to have a couple more bodies around me.
"We will just have to wait and see really (on the injured players). By Wednesday of next week I really need to know whether people are going to train on Thursday.
"I am going to pick the team on Thursday. In recent weeks we have been trying to get players through Thursday and Friday to be able to play on Saturday, and it hasn't worked for us.
"So we will now nail our team down on Thursday morning and go with it, whatever it is."
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