Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew has defended Papiss Cisse's decision to take his side's penalty against Norwich City ahead of Hatem Ben Arfa.

Ben Arfa, who has already scored from the spot once this season, was persuaded to hand the duties over to Cisse, who proceeded to fire his effort over the bar.

However, Pardew, who completed his touchline ban during the match, was understanding after the game, saying that the players merely wanted to see Cisse score.

"I can understand why they did that. They want Papiss to score," said Pardew.

"Players look after players. You would be surprised - it's not as cut-throat as maybe the media sometimes put out. They genuinely wanted him to score the goal and I could see that.

"It shows the spirit of the team that they wanted Papiss to take it because he hadn't scored this year - they invited him to step up."

Newcastle went on to win the game 1-0 courtesy of a Demba Ba strike.