Pardew: Investors ‘don’t know a lot about football’

Alan Pardew thanked the support of Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish after the Eagles ended their run of six-consecutive losses.

Two goals from Christian Benteke and one from James Tomkins fired the Eagles to a 3-0 victory over Southampton at Selhurst Park to ease the pressure on Pardew.

The manager was seen giving Parish a thumbs up, and speaking after the match, Pardew said: “We have a lot of serious investors at the club who perhaps don’t know a lot about football so the chairman has been defending me this week, so I just wanted to say thanks.”

He added: “I’m pleased for the club and it was important that we won today. The discipline was good.

“When the pressure racks up in the Premier League it’s hard but we got the balance right and we had some good attacking play.

“When you’ve been manager at Newcastle and the whole town lives and breathes football, you have to be able to cope with pressure. The pressure sometimes there was intense. It wasn’t as bad this week.”