Alan Pardew to sign new contract with Crystal Palace before FA Cup final

Manager to extend contract until 2020

Alan Pardew is on verge of signing a new deal with Palace (Getty)

Alan Pardew is close to agreeing a new contract with Crystal Palace and hopes to have it signed before he leads his team out in the FA Cup final at Wembley on Saturday.

The Palace manager’s current deal runs until 2018 but he is in advanced talks to extend it until 2020. It is reward for a season in which Palace started brilliantly but tailed off after Christmas while they have been on the Cup run that has seen them beat four Premier League sides on route to Wembley where they will face Manchester United.

The news adds to the positive vibes around the club as the players prepare for the FA Cup final. “They’ve worked really well this week,” Pardew said at his pre-final press conference on Thursday. “We’ve put all the work in, extra work, over a few scenarios which could happen. We're well set. One of two of these players will never play in a final again and this is an opportunity to get a winner's medal, which is so hard. Like the Leicester players, winning the FA Cup would mean the same for us.

“The pressure is on them all the time. They're Man United: a historic club with names we haven't got. Ferguson, Best, Charlton, Cantona. They take a different history into the game. We take one final which we lost into the game, so this group of players have an opportunity to put something permanent there: a first major trophy for Crystal Palace Football Club.”

Pardew revealed he has a fully fit squad to choose from bar Joe Ledley who fractured his fibula in the match against Stoke City and faces a fight to be ready for Wales’ Euro 2016 campaign. “Bakary Sako trained today which gives us a full complement of players other than Joe,” Pardew said. “It's a terrible shame to miss him. Joe is fingers crossed for the Euros.”

Pardew believes an FA Cup final victory, while great for him and the club, would also be a boost for English managers. Only Harry Redknapp with Portsmouth has claimed the old pot in recent years while Pardew was a runner up in 2006 while with West Ham. “We get a really bad press as English coaches and managers," he said. "I could name numerous situations where foreign managers get a kinder press than English managers. I'm not in that mode today. I want to talk about the final.”

Pardew also admitted he had sympathy for his opposite number at United, Louis Van Gaal. “Of course I do,” he said. “All managers are under massive pressure whatever club you're at. I've had it at Newcastle and West Ham, and a bit here. Not so much, though. Louis is feeling that pressure but he's big enough to deal with it. I admire his resilience. I hope his team turn up and play well for him… but I hope we win."