Soccer-Owner's comments heap pressure on Newcastle boss Pardew

LONDON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Whether a throwaway joke or an ominous warning, Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley's suggestions that Alan Pardew will be sacked should they lose their Premier League match at Stoke City on Monday has heaped more unwelcome pressure on the manager. The weird episode of the famously reticent Ashley going public to tell a newspaper reporter outside a central London pub that Pardew's reign would be "dead, finished, over" with one more loss has provided a febrile backdrop to the game. Both owner and manager have joined forces to play down the story in The Independent newspaper, with Ashley's lawyers insisting that any comments made were jokes intended to humour the reporter. Pardew himself brushed aside the affair on Saturday, saying that he would have been more concerned if he had felt it had been a "sit-down interview done in a serious manner". Despite his protestations, though, Pardew had a right to be irritated, and feel even more beleaguered, by Ashley's utterances, coming as they did amid much speculation about the future of the 53-year-old manager. "I've been made aware of his comments in the paper, I've been under pressure at this club for a number of weeks now. All I can focus on now is the team and that's what I'll do," was Pardew's phlegmatic response. He has learned to develop a thick skin. With his side having begun this season as dismally as they finished the last, five league games without a win has left Newcastle at the foot of the table and their fans clamouring for Pardew to be removed. In such circumstances, Stoke's traditionally forbidding Britannia Stadium would usually be one of the last places he would fancy taking his side. Yet so far, Stoke's own home form has offered little for anyone to worry about, with Mark Hughes's men having yet to find the target in defeats by both Aston Villa and Leicester City. (Reporting by Ian Chadband, editing by Toby Davis)