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Crystal Palace's James McArthur targets 'must win' Boxing Day clash against Watford
James McArthur has labelled Crystal Palace’s Boxing Day trip to Watford as a “must-win” game after the defeat to Chelsea.
Diego Costa’s header was enough to condemn Palace to their eighth Premier League defeat in 10 games and leave them just a point outside the relegation zone.
Pressure is growing on manager Alan Pardew and midfielder McArthur has admitted that nothing less than a win at Vicarage Road will be enough ahead of a New Year’s Day trip to Arsenal.
McArthur said: “In that changing room, everyone is confident we have more than enough quality to climb the table – we have some big characters and it only takes one win for us to pick up and build momentum, but we know Watford is a must-win for us.
“Against Chelsea, we stayed in the game, defensively we were very sound, we passed the ball better than we have for a long time – now we have to take those qualities to Watford on Boxing Day.
“That's now a massive game for the club. It's another chance to turn our season around.
“It's not nice being down there, I'm not going to lie. Instead of doom and gloom, we need to look at it as an opportunity to turn the season around and there are a lot of games to go.
“But right now, we are in a relegation scrap and we're not hiding away from it.”
With only six wins in 2016 to date, Pardew knows that Palace will have to start next year much better to stand any chance of staying up.
“I think you have to be realistic and say that this year the results have not been good enough really, and we need to make sure they are better in the next year,” said Pardew.
“We had a great 2015, brilliant. And we now need to replicate that in 2017, in the second half of this season and the first half of next season, and we can do that.
“I’m hurting for Crystal Palace at the moment. It’s a great club, I think it’s got great owners and we just can’t deliver on the results we would like at the moment.”
Pardew confirmed he is looking to sign a left-back and a striker in the January transfer window, saying: “I think a left-back would sort a few things out for us.
“People need strikers and we’ve lost Connor Wickham, so we might need to look in that area as well. Loic Remy still isn’t training fully with us, which has been another massive blow for us. But it’s no use scrambling around for excuses. We accept the stats everyone is throwing around at us and we have to put it right.”