Under-fire Newcastle boss Alan Pardew insisted he is strong enough to take the tide of criticism which came his way after a demoralising 2-1 home defeat by Reading.
The 51-year-old saw his relegation-threatened side squander a 1-0 lead against one of only four Barclays Premier League sides worse off than them, after Adam Le Fondre came off the bench to pile on the agony with a second-half double.
Pardew's three second-half substitutions were all booed by the fans, and there were further jeers on the final whistle as they slipped to a 10th league defeat in 13 outings. He said: "I am strong enough and have been in situations before where I can deal with where we are at. But I think it's obvious that the team wants a result. That would help every situation."
Pardew is hoping an injection of new blood - full-back Mathieu Debuchy made his home debut as the club agreed a fee with Montpellier for central defender Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa - will help to turn things around, and the new recruits cannot arrive quickly enough.
He said: "We are lacking impetus. A result perhaps would have given us some impetus, but we didn't get it, so therefore we need to look to strengthen the team. That's somewhere we can get some impetus and give me some options I think will work for us.
"The 10-day break will also give us a chance to get Steven Taylor up to top speed. He's only had four days' training, so he wasn't really available, and he will add to us.
"But we definitely need two or three more players in this group, and hopefully we can get them over the line before we go to Villa. I would like to go to Villa stronger."
Royal boss Brian McDermott was understandably delighted with a second fightback victory in a week.
He said: "Adam Federici pulled off a couple of really good saves in the first half which proved to be match-winning saves. Pavel Pogrebnyak had a real chance in the first half before they scored and we could have been 1-0 up. But you come here and they get to 1-0 up and then it's never going to be easy.
"But I thought in the second half we upped our game. You have to manage games. You have to stay in the game and once Newcastle didn't get a second goal, we knew we were in with a shout the longer the game went on."
Source: PA
