Pardew power propels Palace to instant victory
ALAN PARDEW enjoyed a perfect homecoming to Selhurt Park last night as Crystal Palace fought back to defeat Tottenham 2-1.
The new Palace boss, on his home debut at the club he once played for, had a Dwight Gayle penalty and a late Jason Puncheon strike to thank for overturning a 49th-minute opener from Harry Kane.
Afterwards, he said: ‘This team is too honest and that is a strange statement for a Premier League manager to make.
‘We need a maverick to release ourselves; we did not do that until the second half and, once we did, we looked good.’
At the foot of the table, Leicester City are now two points adrift after beating Aston Villa 1-0, Paul Konchesky scoring in first-half injury time.
There were red cards in the dying stages when City’s Matty James and Villa’s Ciaran Clark were dismissed after a centre-circle melee.
At Turf Moor, hosts Burnley took all the points to lift themselves out of the bottom three and drop QPR back into the danger zone, with Harry Redknapp’s side setting a new Premier League record of 10 successive away defeats.
Former Falkirk midfielder Scott Arfield opened the scoring, only for Charlie Austin to equalise for the visitors from the spot just after the half hour.
Danny Ings hit back for a 2-1 victory just four minutes later.
In his first league match in charge of West Brom, head coach Tony Pulis conjured up a 1-0 home win over Hull thanks to Saido Berahino.
West Ham, with boss Sam Allardyce absent because of a chest infection, drew 1-1 at Swansea. Andy Carroll’s strike for the visitors was undone by Mark Noble’s own goal.
In the early kick-off at the Stadium of Light, Lazar Markovic inflicted a 1-0 win on 10-man Sunderland, who had Liam Bridcutt sent off.