Newcastle supporters are sick of Alan Pardew's excuses - and fan power may force Mike Ashley to finally wield axe

Newcastle United have supposedly had nothing to play for since accepting they were well short of the European qualification pace, but had more than enough points to stay out relegation trouble. Not anymore.

After a dismal run of form moved into abject territory with the 1-0 defeat at Stoke City, Newcastle are playing to keep manager Alan Pardew in a job.

The statistics are grim. At times, the performances have been even worse. Poor results are one thing, dull, unimaginative football is even worse.

Newcastle have lost 12 of their last 17 games and have failed to score in 12 of those fixtures. They were knocked out of the FA Cup, at home, to Cardiff City in the Third Round and they have done all this while Pardew has offered repetitive excuses about injuries, key players more worried about being fit for the World Cup, bad luck and the sale of Yohan Cabaye to Paris Saint Germain in January.

They are all valid, to an extent, but completely ignore his own role in failing to spur them on and the fact he has, for three years, offered excuses and even praise for owner Mike Ashley, despite the persistent offence he has caused.

Pardew has moaned about the lack of depth in his first team squad, yet he has also publicly defended the failure to sign any players since January 2013. Pardew has performed the manager's role exactly as the owner wants him to, not the supporters. In keeping one content, he has gradually made the others resent him.

The frustration in the stands is boiling over. He is the only member of the Ashley regime that supporters can funnel their anger towards. They can hurt him, they can force him to lose his job, but they cannot force Ashley to sell a club he cannot find a buyer for.

Newcastle fans are tired of listening to Pardew trying to explain the team's woes. Anger and resentment has made them deaf, but they are not blind.

The Newcastle team is one-paced, lacks motivation, defensive discipline, creativity and is unable to play with anything approaching the sort of passion or style that is needed to win matches. There are limitations in the squad that Pardew has acknowledged and cannot entirely be blamed for, but the team is not trying hard enough - and that is unforgiveable on Tyneside.

There is lack of a creative spark, according to Pardew, without Cabaye and the injured Loic Remy, yet he ignores the fact he has fallen out with two players who could add that to the team, Hatem Ben Arfa and Sylvain Marveaux. Even a player he was responsible for signing, Gabriel Obertan, is nowhere to be seen, depriving the team of pace on the counter attack.

The players should not escape blame. Some of them have been disgraceful, their lack of appreciation for what it means to play for a club like Newcastle just another punch in the stomach, but as ever it is the manager who carries the can for their actions. He responds by blaming others in the media and, inaccurately, claiming he is without 10 senior players because of injury or suspension.

After just over three years of tolerating Pardew, supporters are turning in vast numbers. The Stoke game was the first time the discontent has been expressed at a match, but it has been mounting on social media and among influential fanzine writers for a long time.

The home game against Swansea next weekend is a pivotal moment. Pardew needs a win, of course, but if the home support abuse him, if St James' Park offers a vocal and prolonged no confidence vote, then Ashley, even an owner who has never seemed to care what the supporters think or feel, may have to accept a new manager is needed.

When fans turn en masse, a manager's position is untenable, because no team can play in such a negative and divisive atmosphere.

This is not a knee-jerk response to a slump in form and it is not, as Pardew foolishly argued on Saturday night, because the local newspapers have it in for him because they were banned in the autumn. It has been coming for weeks, if not months.

The Newcastle Chronicle may have conducted a poll that revealed 86 per cent of fans wanted Pardew to be sacked last week, but they did not rig it. The Journal may have written he is a "dead man walking" but it was their columnist, one of Pardew's former players at West Ham, Don Hutchinson, who said it.

You can trace the Pardew Out chants that emanated from the hard core travelling support on Saturday and the abusive banners unfurled at the Britannia Stadium back to 12 months ago.

Newcastle's players also stopped playing for him at the end of last season following a Europa League quarter-final defeat to Benfica. The team were almost relegated as a result. He did well to repair the damage and, at Christmas, the Magpies were talking about a top six finish again.