Alan Pardew: “We’ve still got a better squad than we finished with last year, even without the signing (of a striker on deadline day).
“I don’t want to go into that too much, but I just think we’ve started well, and players are playing well.
“We have players in form and we need to keep moving forward.
“We have everybody pulling in the same direction, and that’s something that can’t be taken away from us.
“No matter how much bad publicity we’ve had, or negativity there is around the place, we still have great team spirit. That’s what we’ll take to QPR.
“We hope they support us in the same manner they always do.
“They’ve been brilliant for us. That helps massively away from home.
“They’re loud and noisy and that helps the team. We hope that we give them a performance that is going to give them a lift after missing out on the transfer window striker that we all wanted.”