Pardew wants defender and striker to bolster Palace survival push

Crystal Palace boss Alan Pardew wants to sign a striker and a defender in the transfer window to bolster his side’s push towards the top half of the Premier League.

A 3-0 victory over Southampton last Saturday ended a run of six consecutive defeats and allowed Palace to sustain a three-point gap to the bottom three.

But with striker Connor Wickham facing months out with a knee injury and Palace having kept only two clean sheets in their last 14 matches in all competitions, Pardew is eager for reinforcements in January.

“We need to do something in this window and a lot of teams will move,” he told a news conference ahead of his side’s trip to Hull City on Saturday. “It’s so tight from eighth down and we need to stay with the pack.

“If you stand still you’ll go backwards. A left-footed defender would be important this window, but it’s not easy to get one.

“The Connor injury may force us to act in that department, too, but it’s not easy. We’re hunting in a big market and hopefully we’ll get the one that fits for us.”

Pardew believes the meeting with Mike Phelan’s side could be a defining point in the first half of Palace’s campaign, especially with fixtures against Manchester United and league leaders Chelsea on the horizon.

“I love this league, the competitiveness, the honesty – the product is fantastic,” he said.

“Our game at Hull could define the first half of our season and, we’ve got two very difficult fixtures afterwards.

“I set us up this year to attack teams and we’ve been vulnerable at times. The problem with set plays bit us on the bottom, we didn’t expect it. We tried to put that right last week and it was important we corrected that.”

Hull suffered a damaging 1-0 defeat to Middlesbrough on Monday that has left them just two points above Swansea City at the foot of the table, and Phelan has urged his side to embrace a more positive mindset.

“Negativity plays a part at this club whenever it can. We have to try to change that mentality,” he said.

“I enjoy the good days and when you have a result you don’t want, it does take a few days to get over the disappointments. But you need that positivity.

“We’re not scoring a lot of goals and we have to improve on that.

“We’ve one fit striker and we have to go with that. We have looked at things and we hope to be a bit more progressive.”