Crystal Palace boss Alan Pardew: ‘I’m not interested in Neil Warnock’s opinion’

Palace have excelled in the Premier League under Alan Pardew and are seventh in the table, just five points outside the top four.

Crystal Palace boss Alan Pardew hit back at Neil Warnock after the former Eagles manager said he thought Charlie Austin would be a good fit at Selhurst Park. “He would score goals”.

Graziano Pelle has failed to beat his knee injury in time for Southampton’s FA Cup clash with Crystal Palace at St Mary’s.

“The fact of it is that we are pretty confident that we will keep all of our best players here”.

Man United and Tottenham are both thought to be very interested in a move for the France U20 star, who has played 23 league games this season.

“As a club and as players, we take the FA Cup very seriously and we want to get as far as we can”.

He said: “I can’t win in this press conference – I’m either not concentrating on the FA Cup or not concentrating on the league”. “On the third occasion I hope it doesn’t”. The FA Cup tie here is one of the games of the round and really we could see anything here.

But Pardew has distanced himself from Warnock’s observations, saying: “I’m not a bit interested in what he has to say about Charlie”.

“I think he’s been impressive and there have been a lot of rumours so maybe there is a connection there”, he said. “This draw is tough and we have to come through it, we are going to try to put it right”.

Crystal Palace have suffered with injuries this season but Pardew believes the side are over the worst of it with Bakary Sako available for this weekend and Dwight Gayle and Connor Wickham scheduled to be fit to face Aston Villa on Tuesday.