Crystal Palace vs Newcastle - Alan Pardew keeps low profile

Posted Saturday, November 28, 2015 by PA

Alan Pardew is keeping a low profile as Crystal Palace prepare to face his former team Newcastle.

Palace assistant manager Keith Millen spoke to the media ahead of Saturday's meeting with the Magpies at Selhurst Park.

Pardew's absence suggested that he may be feeling the strain following Monday's disappointing 1-0 home defeat by Sunderland - which left Palace with only one win from their last six - and that he also wishes to distance himself from Newcastle, who have struggled since his departure and are only one point above the Premier League relegation zone.

Sunderland's first away victory of the season owed much to Palace's lack of a threat in the final third and Millen revealed that forwards Dwight Gayle and Bakary Sako will miss out against Newcastle because of injury.

Millen does, however, believes that Palace can benefit from Pardew's in-depth knowledge of his former team.

"We have Alan here, Yohan (Cabaye) was obviously there as a player," said Millen. "They all enjoyed it there, they were successful and enjoyed working with the players.

"(Goalkeeper) Andy Woodman left at the start of the season so we know a lot about their players.

"We have an insight into their individuals but we don't know what team they will play."

Palace's wide players were guilty of getting into good positions and then over-hitting their crosses against Sunderland.

"We won't prepare differently. We know our delivery was not up to scratch (against Sunderland)," said Millen.

"But we also look at the positives. We've looked at Newcastle over the last couple of days and focused on that.

"(Newcastle) have some good players, good attacking players. If you give them time and space they can hurt you. We expect a reaction from them after the disappointment of losing at home (to Leicester 0-3). They try and play football.

"We are disappointed for Monday and this is a chance to bounce back."

Newcastle head coach Steve McClaren has admitted he flouted his own ban on swearing in the wake of Saturday's humiliation by Leicester.

McClaren confirmed there had been heated exchanges on and off the training pitches at the club's Darsley Park headquarters this week amid a grisly post-mortem in the wake of a 3-0 home defeat which set the alarm bells ringing once again.

The former England boss prohibited the use of foul language following his arrival during the summer, but that went out of the window as a few home truths were voiced.

McClaren said: "My swearing went right out of the window. But that's football and that's typical. Each week is different and you have to respond differently, and last week was definitely a different response.

"It's been a normal week after what was a very disappointing result and performance last Saturday, a bad weekend. But I would say I have had a great week on the training field.

"I have thoroughly enjoyed it. It's been feisty, it's been competitive, intense, energetic - really all the things that we were lacking last Saturday, so it's been a good week and I hope that preparation, we take into tomorrow's game."

Newcastle were booed from the pitch by their own fans, who had seen them out-played a fortnight earlier at Bournemouth, only to emerge with a 1-0 victory, and the club currently sits just a point above the Barclays Premier League relegation zone ahead of Saturday's trip to Crystal Palace.

McClaren said: "We didn't do the basics last Saturday and we just talked about doing the basics. We had done that for four games, it had collected us seven points.

"We had a setback. We are not there yet, we are going to have setbacks and we had one on Saturday. We understand the performance wasn't up to our normal standard and we have to get back to that."

Skipper Fabricio Coloccini bore a sizeable share of the criticism thrown at the team, but McClaren refused to single him out and insisted he would remain as his captain.

He said: "There were a lot of players last week who were disappointing."

Midfielder Jack Colback will return to the squad after a knee injury which has sidelined him for a month and keeper Karl Darlow is also fit after an ankle problem.

However, full-back Massadio Haidara is set to be sidelined for four months as he prepares to undergo surgery to repair a damaged knee cartilage.