Pardew shows his faith in Christian

ALAN Pardew believes new £32m signing Christian Benteke will give Crystal Palace the firepower they desperately need this season.

The Belgium striker arrived from Liverpool on Saturday but wasn’t signed soon enough to slot into yesterday’s team.

But Pardew has high hopes for the club-record buy, saying: ‘The one thing that always impressed me about him was he gets the goals as you expect and now and again, the rabbit out of the hat with a goal. And that’s just something we need and needed today. Just one moment will have changed the course of this game and maybe in that 20-minute period, he could have done something for us.’

Pardew plans to partner Benteke with Connor Wickham up front: ‘I thought Connor was excellent for us today and his reaction to Christian’s arrival spoke volumes about his character and there was an opportunity to maybe play both of them which will be a different look for us.’