ALAN Pardew was a happy man after watching his side romp to another crushing win.

The chase for the play-offs remains on after back-to-back home wins against Walsall and Huddersfield with Saints scoring five in both.

Pardew is hoping to get a slice of luck between now and the end of the season to make the top six dream a reality.

But he knows that in their current form Saints are a hot prospect.

He said: “It’s still a long way for us to go –we’re chasing teams who are winning and that’s always difficult.

“We’re going to need luck – in fact we’re going to need a lot of luck – but if we can play like that then there’s lot of points for us to play for.

“We have to try and keep producing that level – we aren’t going to get five goals every week but the effort, the technique, the technical ability we’ve got on the pitch we’re going to create chances and win more than we lose.”

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Pardew believes that the level of performance that his team is producing was always a possibility once he was able to field his strongest side.

He had been hampered after his January recruitment by the fact he had to chop and change so often with players cup tied for either the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy or the FA Cup, or both.

But Pardew has now been able to make a clean selection for the last four matches which has yielded ten points from 12 with 12 goals scored and one conceded.

“We haven’t had as many clean sheets as we would have liked but our defensive record is starting to look good against the other sides,” reflected Pardew.

“We knew we had a problem and we’ve kind of resolved that and we’ve still got good players on the sidelines.

“I am very pleased – the crowd were great, it was a great performance and the players must take all the credit.”

He added: “We think we’ve recruited well here and this team is beginning to gel.

“It was only at Norwich that I picked my best team because people had been cup tied and they showed that when they had the shirts they wanted to keep them.

“We have still got the final and there’s two or three unavailable for that, so there’s still opportunities.

“Papa did terrific when he came on.”

Pardew was also able to hand a late debut to 16-year-old academy product Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, the son of ex-Pompey and England star Mark Chamberlain.

He said: “It was also nice to put the young boy on because we feel he’s got a big future. It was nice to put him on in a comfortable situation.”