Crystal Palace manager Alan Pardew has revealed that he is planning to take his players away to Spain for a warm-weather training camp ahead of their FA Cup clash with Tottenham Hotspur next weekend.
The Eagles' only two wins from their 11 outings since Christmas have come in the FA Cup, having gone nine without a win in the Premier League to drop into the bottom half of the table.
They travel to face in-form Tottenham in a London derby at White Hart Lane looking for a place in the quarter-finals, and Pardew hopes that a trip away, which he experienced as a player on Palace's run to the 1990 FA Cup final, will help to lift the mood around the club.
"That was just a thing that we used to do, that run we had to the [1990] cup final we used to go away for a week, so [it's] a change a scenery, lighten the load a little bit and focus on the cup. It was a good experience for us and hopefully it'll be the same for my players," Pardew told reporters.
"It might change the mood a little bit. But it's a training camp for Spurs, and going forward for the second half of the season, so in a way it might turn out to be a good thing for us: we get ourselves away and work on the team, 'cause we'll obviously have some good weather and some good training facilities to do that.
"Just get a bit of warm weather training, work on the team - we do need to work on the team, there's no doubt about that - and find a formula that's going to work for us with the injuries that we have."
Palace are in the fifth round of the competition for the second consecutive season.
Barney Corkhill
