Palace can still have best Premier League season - Pardew
REUTERS - Manager Alan Pardew feels Crystal Palace have the chance to enjoy the most successful season in their recent history after they beat Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 to reach the FA Cup quarter-finals.
The last time the club reached this stage of the competition was in the 1994-95 season, when they were knocked out by Manchester United after a semi-final replay.
Palace were fifth in the Premier League at the end of December but are now 13th after a run of nine games without a win.
"I said to the players: 'Look, in recent weeks we've obviously been a bit down on ourselves and got a bit stressful in games, which I think is part of the reason we haven't had a result'," Pardew told reporters after the win at Spurs.
"The Cup's different though. We can still have the best season Crystal Palace have ever had in the Premier League. We can still come higher than 10th and we're in the quarter-finals of the (FA) Cup.
"At the start of the season if you'd offered me that I'd have taken it."
Palace's highest Premier League finish was 10th, which they achieved last season.
They trail ninth-placed Watford by four points with 12 games to play.
(Reporting by Simon Jennings in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)