Fine a job as Alan Pardew has done since taking over as manager at Crystal Palace, there can be no arguing luck has gone his way and such appears again to be the case as he prepares to meet his former club, Newcastle United, on Wednesday.
As Pardew confirmed after overseeing a fifth win in six matches since taking over, several key players, all unavailable on Saturday, should be ready to take on Newcastle at Selhurst Park.
The new signing Pape Souaré, Yannick Bolasie and Marouane Chamakh are all expected to join the squad and Mile Jedinak may also return to strengthen a side who showed impressive resilience but still required good fortune and an almost criminal level of wastefulness on Leicester’s part to leave with three points.
The Senegal left-back Souaré will certainly improve a defence in which Martin Kelly consistently struggled to cope with Riyad Mahrez. The winger must have found it as hard to understand as City’s disbelieving supporters, with his team-mates failing to take any of the chances he created, both before and after Joe Ledley had headed past Mark Schwarzer to score for Palace.
David Nugent was unlucky to see a first-half header come back off the angle of post and bar but well though Julián Speroni performed in making a series of saves, Nugent, Jeffrey Schlupp, Esteban Cambiasso, Paul Konchesky and Jamie Vardy will all feel they should have got their names on the scoresheet.
Even the injury which prevented the centre-half Scott Dann retaking the field after half-time, suffered in a clash of heads with Wes Morgan, turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Pardew, who acknowledged Brede Hangeland looked the best player on the field after coming on.
Palace themselves wasted a number of chances to extend their lead – statistics suggested there were a total of 33 attempts on goal, 19 by Leicester – leaving Pardew relieved as he contemplated this week’s meeting with old friends.
“We had to really defend for our lives at times, so we’ve set up the next game, a home game against my old team, and I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “I’ve still got all my staff there, my players, they’re close to my heart, and it will be strange, because after four years of breathing and living every part of that club, and that city, good and bad, it’s kind of emotional, so it will be a slightly different game for me.
“I’m not expecting or hoping for any reaction from the fans, because we had some great times together. It was not so great, the last year, but on the whole my experience there was great, I thought I did a good job and that I could walk out of there with my head held high.”
The City manager, Nigel Pearson, wasreflective, having rather unnecessarily extended an accidental touchline tangle with Palace’s James McArthur towards the end of the game – “He said something,” was Pearson’s explanation.
“There may be some people who will draw a line and say that’s it. There’s no way back for us now but we don’t see it that way. It’s a bad result, a decent performance, so a bit of a kick in the teeth and the players are down but we deal with it and move on. By the time we reconvene I know they’ll be looking at what we can do rather than what we can’t do.
“That’s the biggest thing. The next job for us is to be difficult opponents for Arsenal in London on Tuesday.”
And then, following a trip to Aston Villa in the FA Cup, at Everton and Manchester City. In fact Leicester’s next home game is not until mid-March, when Hull City are the visitors. By then even Pearson may be less sanguine.
Man of the match Julián Speroni (Crystal Palace)
