Cisse excites boss Pardew

The 26-year-old trained with his new team-mates for the first time on Friday morning after his return, along with leading scorer Demba Ba, from Senegal's short-lived African Cup of Nations Cup.

Pardew would not be drawn on whether or not the pair with start in tandem against Aston Villa in the Premier League this weekend, but he is confident his big-money January signing from Freiburg will make an impact once he does get his chance.

Asked what Cisse will bring to the Magpies, Pardew replied: "Single-minded goalscoring.

"I don't think he is going to hesitate to shoot, so whether he starts or whether he comes off the bench on Sunday, you are going to see a directness from him."

Cisse's arrival has been eagerly-anticipated since he put pen to paper during a whirlwind visit to Tyneside before heading off on international duty.

Even his new team-mates were eager to see what he could do when they got their first chance on Friday morning.

Pardew said: "Not all the boys did the full session, but they all stayed around and wanted to have a nose and see how he got on. I think he impressed one or two.

"The two guys coming in certainly will have buoyed everybody, and I know there will be a fantastic atmosphere at our place.

"Whether Cisse starts, whether Demba starts or whether they come off the bench, they are going to have an impact of some type, and I am looking forward to it.

"It's going to be a great day for us, hopefully."

Ba's 15 goals to date since his own arrival in the north-east during the northern summer mean he is almost certain to be asked to resume where he left off, but Cisse's lack of training with the squad, and the fact that Pardew's men won 2-0 at Blackburn Rovers in midweek, mean the manager faces some difficult, if pleasant, selection problems.

He said: "Everybody is pulling in the right direction here and everybody is putting a stint in, so it's great for me as the manager.

"I can almost pick any team and put them out there, and they are giving 100 percent, and that's what you want.

"I was really, really pleased at Blackburn. It was a massive game for us.

"We had a lot of key players missing, and yet we still won, so I don't care what the criticism was - we didn't control the game, we didn't do this, we didn't do that - we won 2-0."

The victory at Ewood Park took Newcastle to the lofty heights of fifth place in the table to spark talk of Europe and perhaps more fancifully, a return to UEFA Champions League football.

While Pardew knows there is a long way to go, he is enjoying his club's period among the usual suspects in the higher echelons of English football.

He said: "We have been up there all year - we haven't been past seventh for a long time, so we have been in and around it.

"But we haven't gone away, we have nagged and kept knocking on the door, and one or two teams are always going to falter in form, and we have stayed pretty steady.

"I am hoping we can end the season like we started and hopefully bring European football to the club.

"But at the moment, the focus is Aston Villa.

"We actually performed very well at Aston Villa [earlier this season] and Shay Given, one of our old legends, kept us at bay, so I am hoping he doesn't play as well this week."

Pardew will be without French midfielder Yohan Cabaye as he serves the second leg of his three-match ban after being found guilty of violent conduct.