Pardew: "Our season is in the balance."

Alan Pardew has admitted that he has his eyes on greater achievements as he challenges his squad to make a late season charge for Europe.

Given the amount of injuries to key players that we have at the moment, I think that perhaps Europe could be out of reach for this season, but it still doesn't mean that European qualification is completely out of the question.

In a way it's testament to how well the squad have done so far this season. Most of us realised that the squad had limitations before the season even started, so it would be fair to say that they have done well so far as they look odds on (fingers crossed) for survival.

Still, Pardew is mindful of the fact that we could do more than just survive and admits that the season can go a number of ways from this juncture.

"Our season is very much in the balance,” Pardew told the Daily Star. "A win at Fulham and a good result against Arsenal would be really big for us."

“There’s no reason why we can’t get to 35 points quickly. And then we can start looking at finishing above Sunderland and threatening a European place.”

I have to agree with what he is saying to be honest. A couple of good results and we can keep on looking up, but a couple of defeats and we are looking down. It could be the difference between settling for safety, mid-table security, or challenging for Europe. Heaven forbid eh?

Right now we sit in 9th place in the table, but if we can win our game in hand we can move up to 7th, which could potentially be good enough for a European spot. On the other hand, we are still only eight points clear of the bottom three, so you can see that things are still finely poised as it stands.

We are at a crossroads at the minute to be fair. If we can maintain a decent run of form then I see no reason why we can't at least have a little flirt with European qualification. However, if our form dips we could well find ourselves spending the rest of the season trying to avoid trouble.

On a more selfish note, Pardew's words have given me a nice little chance to reinvigorate the poll that has been running on here for a week or so as it seems rather relevant to this piece. If you've already voted then fair play and thank-you very much, but if you haven't, please vote now.

[poll id="4"]