Alan Pardew: I always expect the sack

Alan Pardew insists he will still be going to bed each night fearing the sack despite his side’s thumping win over Southampton.

The Crystal Palace boss was under intense pressure following six defeats in a row in the Premier League but saw it lifted with a vital victory at Selhurst Park.

Two goals from record signing Christian Benteke and one from defender James Tomkins did the trick. But with a relegation battle at Hull on Saturday Pardew insists he still isn’t safe.

“You have to face the sack every week in this job,” he said. “When I was manager of Southampton, I won 4-0 and I still got the sack!

“What I say is always expect the sack, that’s the reality in this market and this world. So don’t think I’m sleeping comfortable at night. I’ll go to bed thinking about Hull.”

Even so, Pardew gave his chairman Steve Parish the thumbs up after his side trounced Saints to move up to 13th in the table.

It was Parish who defended his manager in crunch talks with the club’s American investors, easing fears that Roy Hodgson or Sam Allardyce would be called in to take his job.

Now Pardew says it is vital Palace continue to improve on the pitch if the club wants to move forward.

“I like to think since I’ve been here there’s been a lot of good work done – but it can be undone by a period of bad results,” he said.

“This period has happened so quick – from having three wins and everybody saying ‘everything’s great, Alan’s great and what a great manager’ to six defeats later your job being on the line.

“But the brand we have is strong, the club is strong and we have good investors. So we have to do it on the pitch too.”

Pardew was backed by the club’s new investors in the transfer market last summer, spending a whopping £27m on striker Benteke from Liverpool.

The Belgian star repaid a chunk of that fee on Saturday.

“I was really pleased with him,” said Pardew. “ I think when you’ve got the profile he has and the money we’ve spent on him it would be easy to look around the team and say ‘what’s going on?’ and, ‘I’m the man’. But he didn’t. He played like he was an 18-year-old I’d just put in the team. I was absolutely delighted for him.”

Palace’s clash at Hull is followed by home games with Manchester United and leaders Chelsea.

But Pardew insists they should aim for victories, no matter who they are playing.

“Sometimes those games are the best wins of your season,” he said.

“The top teams have been steamrolling a lot of us in the middle of the pack and the bottom of the pack – but something will change. It won’t be like that all season. Hopefully we can win them.”

Saints goalkeeper Forster apologised for his horrendous blunder which put Palace on the way.

Embarrassed Forster gave Benteke a tap in for his first after kicking at thin air from Jose Fonte’s backpass – with England manager Gareth Southgate watching from the stands.

He said: “It happens as a keeper and you’ve just got to take it and move on. It’s not my first mistake, it won’t be my last, and it’s just disappointing because then we didn’t really recover.

“I apologised to my team-mates for making that mistake, but it’s one of those things. We’ll pick our heads up and move on, as we’ve got a massive game on Thursday against Hapoel Be’er Sheva in the Europa League.”