WHEN John Carver takes Newcastle United to the KC Stadium this afternoon he will not make the mistakes of his predecessor – even if there are those who might expect him to.

Carver was stunned when Alan Pardew headbutted Hull midfielder David Meyler as the two clashed on the touchline during the Magpies’ defeat on March 1 last year.

Newcastle’s interim head coach never felt Pardew was capable of such an action and was as surprised as everyone else when he saw the reruns of what occurred.

“I was gutted for Alan. I had never seen that in his personality, not on the training ground, the way he is with people,” said Carver.

“I know what I’m like, people might expect something like that from me because I can be aggressive, but not from Alan. Definitely not. I was surprised and had a huge amount of sympathy for him - especially for his bank balance.”

Pardew was hit with a £100,000 fine by Newcastle for his actions and then the FA followed up with a further £60,000 penalty as well as a three-game stadium ban plus a four-match touchline suspension. It was the toughest managerial punishment in Premier League history.

"It did disrupt the season a little bit,” admitted Carver. "The manager was up in the stand, in a hotel for one game and he was still picking the team but couldn’t be there, so it was very difficult for him. I can guarantee there won’t be that commotion on Saturday.”

Carver, taking Newcastle back to the KC Stadium for the first time today, did not see the incident in real time but had no defence of Pardew after realising what had happened.

He said: “This is the honest truth. If you look at the footage when it actually happened, Paul Dummett played the ball down the line to Yoan Gouffran and I jumped out of my seat to tell Paul to ‘put it in the hole.’

“As I was doing that, that’s when the commotion kicked off. As I got there, I saw the two of them come together, but I wasn’t sure whether there was any movement. Steve Agnew said to me ‘he’s just nutted him.’

“Because I walked out to speak to Paul, I didn’t see it happen. When I saw the replay ... well, he got punished, fined and suspended. You can’t do it, can you? I wouldn’t do it - at least not in the technical area!”

Carver has Mehdi Abeid and Gabriel Obertan available after injury today, while striker Papiss Cisse has returned from Africa Cup of Nations duty. He has also revealed further boosts on the injury front.

He said: “Ryan Taylor has been back all week and he looks good. It’s really encouraging having all these players around; Mehdi Abeid, Gabby Obertan, Siem de Jong. Rolando Aarons is coming back next week.

“Paul Dummett is injured this weekend, but should be back training again on Monday for the Stoke game. It’s definitely too early for Siem, but things are looking good on that front.”