Pierre Sage insisted he believes his players and staff are still behind him despite a limp 2-0 home defeat to Newcastle extending Crystal Palace's winless run to four games. The Eagles were soundly beaten at Selhurst Park on Sunday as they failed to bounce back from last weekend's 5-0 hammering at Brighton, with an 11-minute double from the Magpies shortly after half-time sealing their fate. The timing of the goals - the first coming barely a minute after the restart following Sage's half-time team talk - was particularly concerning with Palace again starting a half slowly.
A fifth of Palace's goals conceded have come in the first 10 minutes of games this season, including three in the heavy defeat at the Amex Stadium last weekend. But when asked whether he thought he retained the belief of his players and the club hierarchy, he said: "Yes. I think they do [believe in me].
"It's normal [to be under pressure] because we don't have the results. The noise is a consequence of the team and we don't have [the points] we expect. "Inside, we just are really focused on the solutions, how to be better and how to create the conditions to compete.
I don't have to convince people around the club, I just have to convince the players to do their best and continue their improvement. "After that, this kind of decision of what we are speaking about is to the chairman and owners. For me, the noise around the team and club is only noise.
"I spoke with the chairman this week, but I didn't speak about this subject. "We spoke about the game, the condition of the team and how we build our game plan to compete today. We didn't speak about this subject.
I share my strategy with him and the technical staff. It's normal." Sage led Lens to their first ever French Cup last season in his one and only season in charge at the club, as well as a runners-up spot in Ligue 1, but has struggled to adapt as quickly to life in the Premier League with Palace only two points ahead of bottom side Sunderland with eight games gone. The Frenchman admitted he had expected his start to be better but insisted things would improve given time.
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