Crystal Palace skipper Mile Jedinak has backed Alan Pardew despite being left on the bench on his return to Selhurst Park.

Jedinak has been away on international duty with Australia since the New Year, winning the Asian Cup in his home nation, missing the start of Pardew’s reign.

He returned to the Palace squad, albeit on the bench, against Arsenal last weekend, and stood by his manager’s decision not to play him.

He said: “The manager made a decision and I respect that.

“I support the boys 110 per cent and you can’t fault anyone’s efforts against Arsenal because I thought everyone today put in one hell of a shift.

“It is always going to have to be that way, we kept that tempo for as long as we possibly could and we did that really well.”

While Jedinak may have been the other side of the world representing his nation, he still made sure to keep an eye on Palace.

He admitted could not watch any games during a good January for the Eagles due to the 11-hour time difference, but checked on results whenever possible.

The 30-year-old said: “I just looked at the results and saw that everyone was doing really well.

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“I heard from a few people and things like that but you know it’s a little bit difficult to watch it while you are over there with the time difference,” he said.

His return did not go as he would have wanted having to watch his teammates suffer a 2-1 loss.

Santi Cazorla and Olivier Giroud put Arsenal ahead in the first half before Glenn Murray pulled one back late on.

Jedinak said: “It’s difficult to take. We didn’t deserve to lose 2-1. I thought the boys showed great courage and discipline.

“We had a couple of chances, Glenn was unlucky to not score that second one, but overall I thought we gave a very good account of us,” he added.