EAGLES DOWN

Pardew: I feel I can turn it around ... but we need a victory quickly

ALAN PARDEW has backed himself to turn around the “mess” at Palace after the dramatic defeat at Swansea left him battling to save his job.

The Crystal Palace manager watched in horror as his side conceded two goals in injurytime to record their sixth defeat in a row.

He is now the bookies’ favourite to be the next Premier League boss to leave and may not even make it to Saturday’s home clash with Southampton.

But Pardew, who two minutes earlier had been celebrating after Christian Benteke put his side 4-3 up, insisted he will not walk away.

Asked whether he believed he still had the confidence of the Palace board, he replied: “That’s not my decision.

“My decision is always the same when you lose a match, you have to address the players and deal with it.

“I am certainly strong enough and I have been here before. I know how it works.

“In terms of myself and my team, I have a good team.

“I will get them motivated and we go back to work on Monday and get ready, working towards playing Southampton next week.”

Four of the five goals Palace conceded were from set-pieces, and Pardew (above) blasted his defenders for not being strong enough. “I thought Swansea did well and we were hanging on,” he added. “And then the game went into a period of madness of goals.

“Bad goals for them and bad goals for us.

“In the end, five bad goals for us and four for them.

“I’m very disappointed with the way we defended, particularly the last two goals when we had got ourselves in front.

“My players have given everything, but we can’t concede goals like this at this level and that is something we will have to address. “The scrutiny on me comes with the territory. I will do what I always do, reflect on this game and try and correct it for the next one. “But six defeats – and a couple we shouldn’t have had – are what’s put us in this mess that we’re in and we need to get ourselves out of it.

“I still feel I can turn it around. But we need to get a victory quickly and we almost had it today. I can’t really defend my defenders. They needed to stand up and be better than that.”

Crystal Palace defender Scott Dann said: “I don’t think we can put it into words.

“The way the changing room is feeling, it’s a difficult one to take and I’m not sure, at this minute, what is the right thing to say.

“You would like to think, when you go 3-1 down and fight your way to get back ahead, that you should go on and see the game out and we obviously didn’t do that.

“It’s a crazy game and difficult to take.

“We haven’t learned our lesson and the sooner we do that, the better for everyone involved.”

Swansea boss Bob Bradley was relieved after his first win in six matches since replacing Francesco Guidolin.

“I’m just so happy for the players because it has been a difficult season for them,” he said.

“I want to focus on the fact they showed such character in a difficult moment, and that is going to pay off for them.”