Pardew: No excuses

"We just weren't good enough and we were reminded again how tight this league is," Pardew said.

"You can't come off the gas for even one game because you get punished because teams in this division are so closely matched.

"But we can have no excuses - we simply weren't good enough."

Gus Poyet was understandably delighted.

"I think the lads were superb. The best present in my whole life is these three points.

"The message right now is game-by-game," he added. "We need to think about the next one now.

"We need to think about keeping on improving as a team, keep working hard and believing in the strength of the team and work hard on the weakness.

"And I think they (the players) know and they are convinced we can do better."