WITH his Newcastle United team-mates poking fun at last weekend's deflected match-winner, Papiss Cisse is determined to score a “proper goal” in tomorrow's Premier League game with Liverpool.

Cisse unwittingly deflected Sammy Ameobi's long-range strike past Ben Foster with the base of his back to claim his first league goal of the season in Sunday's 2-1 win over West Brom.

The Senegal international has been the source of some relentless ribbing this week, with his team-mates aiming for his backside during their shooting practice at Newcastle's Longbenton training ground.

Having come off the bench to score against the Baggies, Cisse is desperate to start at Anfield tomorrow, although his participation could hinge on whether Demba Ba passes a last-minute fitness test on his injured shin.

Either way, Alan Pardew has watched Cisse at close quarters this week and can sense a determination to follow up last weekend's unusual effort with a more conventional strike.

“The guys have been taking the mickey out of him all week,” said the Newcastle boss. “But I still think it is a great thing that the ball struck him and went in like that.

“Cheik (Tiote) has been laughing at him all week, trying to hit him and deflect the ball into the goal. Everyone's been doing it. If anything, I think it probably deepens his resolve to get a proper goal. But I really don't care how they go in. They can do it again in a game for all I care.”

With no midweek game as a result of their third-round exit in the Capital One Cup, Newcastle's players have had the rare luxury of a full week on the training ground.

Excluding the international breaks, when a number of players were away, it is the first time this season that Pardew has had a full seven days in which to work with his players on a range of issues that have troubled him in the opening three months of the campaign.

Tomorrow's opponents were in League Cup action on Wednesday, losing to Swansea, and after a succession of rushed preparations in the days following European matches, Pardew is hoping a rare period of rest will play into his players' hands.

“We've actually been able to do some work with the team, and we've sorely missed that,” he said. “Although we've been getting decent results, we've been grappling with the rhythm and passing options in the team. Hopefully, we will have a bit more fluidity in our play and cause Liverpool problems.

“It's been tough because, last season, we tended to go from one week to the next and had a week's preparation while other teams were playing midweek matches. That meant we had a slight advantage, and we were bringing that home.

“This time around, we have the pressures of a big club, playing midweek European fixtures. It's nice, don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining, but it's different and we're having to get to grips with it.”

Tomorrow's game reunites Pardew with Brendan Rodgers for the first time since his former colleague swapped Swansea for Liverpool in the summer.

The pair worked together at Reading, where Rodgers was the academy manager while Pardew was the manager of the first team, and neither could have envisaged a scenario where they would be leading two of the biggest teams in England into one of the most eagerly-awaited fixtures of the campaign.

“I was thinking about it the other day, and when we were working together on the school field that was our training ground at Reading at the time, I don't think we would have believed that one would end up being Liverpool manager and the other would end up being manager of Newcastle,” said Pardew. “But that's where we've ended up, leading two very big clubs.

“We've taken slightly different routes, but I always thought he would make a great coach-stroke-manager. There were a couple of clubs I would like to have taken him to, but by then he'd already moved on and found good roles himself.

“He's someone I always thought would do very well. He has this vision about how he would like to play, but you need to have the tools for that and I've got to be honest, I don't think he has them at the minute. For whatever reason, I don't think Liverpool gave him all the tools he needs in that last transfer window. I think everyone can see that they need a couple of extra players in that team.”