WITH the intense scrutiny on the future of Alan Pardew following a dreadful start to the new Premier League season, it is easy to overlook what the players must be feeling during difficult times.

With a lack of homegrown footballers in the Newcastle United first team picture, a question often posed is do the players really care?

Key midfielder Cheik Tiote is adamant that he does. Pardew, as the manager, has taken the flak and he will do once more if a first league victory of the season fails to arrive at Swansea City this afternoon.

But this is not just about Pardew. The players do not want to spend the campaign involved in a serious relegation fight.

“We hear all of the fans,” said Tiote. “It doesn’t matter what the manager is saying, what people are saying about the manager, what we have to do as players is fight on the pitch.

“We have to do everything we can for the club, for the fans, to make sure things improve. I hope on Saturday we will score goals and get a result.

“It’s normal the way we are all feeling. We feel like the fans. We are all hurting at the moment because we didn’t expect to be in the position we are in. The season is so long. We have to find a way to fight to turn this around. Scoring goals is the only way to turn things around.”

A quick glance at the Premier League table and Newcastle’s results highlight just how much of a problem scoring has become. Newcastle have scored just five times this season, all coming in two games; failing to find the net in four Premier League matches.

Papiss Cisse, yet to start a game after only recently recovering from a serious knee injury, is the only striker on the club’s books to score in the Premier League, to help Pardew enjoy victory on just five occasions since the turn of the year.

Tiote said: “The pressure keeps building and that is normal when you don’t win games. We are doing everything we can to try to win. We miss some finishing in the final third and that is what is costing us. Hopefully we can get some chances to score goals in the next game.

“We miss some chances, but we are not being lucky either. We are playing quite well as a team at the moment we just can’t seem to score. That is our main problem.

“It is not easy in the Premier League, Swansea is another tough game, but we have to stick together and it is not easy at the moment, we have to do the best for the fans and for everyone else connected with the club.”

Newcastle were not outplayed at Stoke on Monday and it was only the Southampton debacle, where they lost 4-0 last month, when Pardew’s team has been brushed aside with ease.

“It was very frustrating for us at Stoke but we tried everything we could to win,” said Tiote, whose performances against Stoke and Hull were labelled ‘world-class’ by his boss.

“We played as a team, we just need some luck and we are not getting it. There are just no goals. We need to score, that’s the main problem and everyone can see that.”