ALAN PARDEW last night admitted that his position as Newcastle United manager is in doubt after watching his side’s winless start to the Premier League season extend to six matches.

The under-fire Magpies boss had to put up with stick from the fans for the majority of the 1-0 defeat at the Britannia Stadium, as supporters regularly chanted for his sacking in front of the club’s owner Mike Ashley.

A header after quarter of an hour from Peter Crouch proved enough to condemn Newcastle to a third reversal from six, leaving Pardew’s team with just three points from the first available 18.

Only goals scored prevents them from occupying bottom spot in the Premier League at this stage, with Pardew well aware of the growing number of fans wanting his near four year reign to come to an end.

The Newcastle boss said: “I don’t know (how secure my job is). It’s my job to show the players that there a lot of games to go and I have to be strong and show that there is a resilience.”

He added: “It’s a tough job, I make no bones about that, and it’s tough where we are at the moment.

“The fans are giving their honest opinion of what they believe. I looked at them and clapped them at the end to show I respect their views.

“I know there is a big question mark about me being at this football club and the only way I can answer that is to do the job to the best of my ability and try to get some answers.”

Newcastle head for Swansea City on Saturday and bookmakers have slashed the odds on him being sacked before the end of the week, with selected bookmakers offering 4/6 that he will be gone before the trip to the Liberty Stadium.

Stoke could only score once and Newcastle did battle until the end to try to rectify the situation. Despite plenty of encouraging signs outside of the box, however, there was a lack of threat in front of goal.

The nearest Newcastle came to equalising was when Jack Colback hit the bar from close range in the closing stages.

Pardew said: “We didn’t create enough and we’re honest about that in the dressing-room. If we had got the equaliser we were going to get the ball and go for a winner, because we knew that winning was everything.

“A draw would have been as bad as a defeat because we need to get a win and we need to get it quick. It's slight margins in the game but another defeat. We can't keep getting beat and we'll have to address that.

“It's been our problem for most of the season, we've got to find a little bit more quality. Our delivery and method let us down. We did a bit more when we had width in the team and we might need to take a couple of changes to give us some thrust.”

Despite previous suggestions that Pardew was safe in his job, he is expecting to speak with Ashley sooner rather than later.

He said: “I think we'll have some serious conversations [with owner Mike Ashley] because he doesn't want to lose and neither to do I.

“I'm here to lead the team. I've never really been in this situation before but I'm a football manager, that's what I do and will continue to do.”