Pardew frustrated after Arsenal defeat

Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew expressed his frustration after seeing his side slip to a 1-0 defeat to Arsenal on Sunday.

Pardew’s men were undone by a header from Olivier Giroud 20 minutes into the second half at St James’ Park, the France international capitalising on poor marking from the hosts to glance home Theo Walcott’s free-kick.

Newcastle were unable to break down the Arsenal defence despite going close on a number of occasions, and Pardew felt that his side were unfortunate not to have claimed a share of the spoils.

“I’m disappointed for the players and our fans because I don’t think we’ve done much wrong to get a defeat against our name,” he said.

“My overall feeling is that we’ve come out the wrong side. A few things went against us in terms of decisions and that was probably the difference.

“It’s just frustrating a little bit that we’ve not got something on the scoreboard in terms of a point, no more than that, where one set play where we didn’t defend has cost us and we’ve been good at them all year.”

Despite the defeat, though, Pardew believes that the competitiveness his players displayed against the Premier League leaders will increase confidence.

“It was a really tight game, a really interesting game,” he added.

“A lot of my players can take massive credit from the way they’ve played in that game – we had some outstanding performances, unfortunately we have nothing to show for it.

“But our confidence has perhaps even improved I would suggest, certainly on reflection the players will feel that.”