Pardew hails skipper

Alan Pardew admits Newcastle need players like Fabricio Coloccini if they are to escape relegation.

Magpies captain Coloccini put in an assured display to shut Norwich out at Carrow Road on Saturday even though it emerged 24 hours earlier that he had asked to leave the club for personal reasons.

"He's a class player," Pardew said. "Great players can play through crises. We had a crisis in terms of our results. It is players of his calibre and Tim Krul and (Yohan) Cabaye that are going to get us up the league, which we need to do."

Copyright (c) PA Sport 2013, All Rights Reserved.