Parish hails 'positive force' Pardew

Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish has given his backing to Alan Pardew, saying the Eagles' manager is "a positive force" at the club.

Palace ended a run of six straight Premier League defeats with a 3-0 win over Southampton on Saturday, and Parish gave the former Newcastle and West Ham boss his full backing ahead of the crucial match at Hull City at the weekend.

"The most important thing is we want him to succeed all the things around the club are geared towards making him succeed," Parish told Talksport.

"He’s a positive force in everything around the football club. So everybody is geared towards making Alan a success at the club."

Pardew thanked Parish for defending him from the criticism of "serious investors at the club who perhaps don’t know a lot about football” after Saturday's win over the Saints, but the Eagles' chairman insists Pardew wasn't referring to American major shareholders David Blitzer and Josh Harris, who each purchased 18% of the club last year.

"We’ve got smaller shareholders and we went to a dinner with them the week before [last], and a lot of them kept saying to Alan: ‘We don’t know anything about football,’" Parish continued.

"It wasn’t the smartest, [the] lack of differentiation between Josh and David who we deal with all the time and are close to everything all the time, and some of the other guys. I think [Pardew’s] intention was to thank me, Josh and David, but unfortunately that has been twisted out of shape."

Palace had the worst record in all four divisions of English football for points-per-game in 2016 before the win over the Saints, and Parish, who appointed Pardew on a three-and-a-half year deal in January 2015, says results need to keep on improving.

"Look, it’s ‘totally safe’ in that every manager is under pressure. You need to win football matches. It’s a very binary industry. And we’re all under pressure. You can’t lift that pressure from people," he said.

Photo (Getty Images/Christopher Lee)

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