Pardew won't be too gutted if Saints don't make top six

12:07pm Friday 5th March 2010

By Adam Leitch

ALAN Pardew believes Saints can be promoted this season – but will not be devastated if they don’t.

The Saints boss, whose team are in a rich vein of form going into tomorrow’s match at Tranmere, is philosophical in his approach.

He recognises that a team capable of scoring five goals in back-to-back games could yet make a charge to the top six, despite entering this weekend 14 points adrift.

But, for the long term success of the team, Pardew, below, can see that advantages could be gained by spending another season in League One in which Saints would hopefully win the title.

He said: “I want to get in the play-offs and I feel this team can get promoted – there is no doubt in my mind about that.

“I’m not going to be sitting here absolutely devastated if we don’t get in there because I know this team will go very, very well next year.

“We’ve got a lot of young players who might need to get used to winning rather than creeping in, getting through the play-offs and then find themselves in the Championship where we’re stepping up a level and not having it our own way.

“When you get it your own way, when you keep winning and you go up a division, if you can have 18 months of that, you really believe you’re going to win no matter what the opposition are.

Pardew currently has his wish for the remainder of the season with Saints in the top two form sides in League One.

Scoring five goals against both Walsall and Huddersfield as well as beating league leaders Norwich underlines the quality of the side but Pardew knows Saints need to keep players fit to have a chance of a top six finish this season.

“If we can keep some of the key players fit – because all teams have key players, Drogba for Chelsea, Lambert for us – then I expect to be in the top form of the top two,”

“We had a slow start, a sticky part in the middle where we were drawing games - without losing - that we perhaps should have won with big cup runs and we’ve ended up in a position now where we’re a long way off.

“We’re going to need the opposition now to lose and draw games and one of them maybe having a sticky run for us to get in.”