Pardew: Me and Cabaye is like Fergie and Keane

Yohan Cabaye: Crystal Palace midfielder suspended against Chelsea

Yohan Cabaye: Crystal Palace midfielder suspended against Chelsea

Crystal Palace boss Alan Pardew has compared his relationship with Yohan Cabaye to Sir Alex Ferguson and Roy Keane at Manchester United.

Cabaye joined Palace over the summer in a £10.9million deal to link up with Pardew for the second time after the pair’s successful time together at Newcastle.

And Cabaye has scored three goals in his nine games for the Eagles, with Palace going into the international break fourth in the table following Saturday’s 2-0 win over West Brom.

Speaking of his relationship with Cabaye, Pardew said: “He can smell what to do at the right time and it’s very important for a manager to have a talent like that.

“Roy Keane at Manchester United, I’m sure Fergie could look at him and know when to push the team forward or sit in.

“In those moments, it’s very important to have a lieutenant. Someone like Yohan has a technical ability to dictate the pace of the game and there’s not many players that can do that.”

The former Newcastle boss feels the signing of Cabaye proves Palace are becoming an established top flight club.

Pardew added: “We were very fortunate to be able to finance that deal. It was a deal that knocked us out of kilt and you do worry about that because of the group. The chairman and the board were worried.

“I assured them that with this player, there’s no player can knock on my door and say ‘I want the same money as Cabaye.’

“You can sign players and that doesn’t happen. You increase the wage structure and they don’t deliver, then you have got a problem.

“With PSG, we had difficult negotiations of course – a French club owned by Arab nation – very difficult. So we had to put a lot of work in and his agent played a big part as well.”