Pardew aiming to land a blow for English managers by guiding Palace to first major trophy
Crystal Palace manager Alan Pardew is desperate to make it third time lucky in the FA Cup final and land a blow for English managers in the increasingly cosmopolitan upper reaches of the domestic game.
Pardew has tasted defeat in the Wembley showpiece twice before: as a player against Manchester United in a 1990 prequel to this year’s fixture, and as West Ham manager against Liverpool a decade ago.
To end that sequence he will have to upset the odds on Saturday and coax a Palace side who have only flickered sporadically since Christmas to victory over Louis van Gaal’s turgid but expensively assembled United team.
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A first FA Cup success for Palace would make Pardew only the second English manager to lift the trophy in 20 years, after Harry Redknapp’s win with Portsmouth in 2008.
In doing so, he believes it would also give a much-needed boost to home-grown coaches, whose numbers have dwindled to the degree that only four Premier League clubs ended the season with English managers.
“It would be good for this club and English coaches to win it. I’ve come so close, as an English manager probably the closest for a long time, to winning it,” Pardew said.
“Harry [Redknapp] won it with Portsmouth. But we get a really bad press as English coaches and managers. I could name numerous situations where foreign managers get a kinder press than English managers.”
Much has been made of the parallels between Palace’s 1990 final against United, which they lost 1-0 in a replay after a thrilling 3-3 draw that featured a show-stealing cameo from super-sub Ian Wright.
Then, United’s manager Sir Alex Ferguson was facing the risk of the sack having endured three barren seasons and growing supporter unrest – a similar scenario to that currently dogging Van Gaal.
Pardew played in both games and concedes that Palace’s cup run, which included a famous semi-final defeat of all-powerful Liverpool, put them on the map, but is keen for his crop to create their own history.
“I’ve tried to distance ourselves from 1990 because it’s nothing to do with this era. It’s about this team getting to a cup final and winning. We’re not going to drown ourselves in 1990,” he added.
“I think the pressure is on them all the time because it’s Manchester United. They have their famous colours and the history, the iconic names that you would associate with Manchester United that we haven’t got.
“The history we take into the game is one final which we lost, so this team have got the opportunity to put something permanent there and that is the first major trophy for Crystal Palace.”
Despite their underdog status, Pardew believes Palace, who finished 15th in the Premier League, 10 places below United, are better equipped than their opponents in some positions.
“We are going to be the side that needs to fight that bit harder to win, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” he said. “We have got areas of the pitch where I think we’re slightly superior and we’ve got to make those areas count.”