Alan Pardew clearly thought the time had come for some home truths. Crystal Palace have been able to cling to their best FA Cup run in more than two decades as cause for optimism, or to point to untimely injuries sustained by key personnel as an explanation for shoddy Premier League results, but a straight question provoked a blunt answer. Are his team now embroiled in a relegation fight? “Yes, of course we are,” he said. “We keep losing and we need to click into gear. So, as much as I’m looking at myself, I’m looking at my players and staff and saying: ‘Come on, stop daydreaming. Let’s get on with it.’ ”

The impression was that he had just delivered that very message to the ranks. Palace’s slide from European contention to a precarious position above the relegation scrap has gone almost unnoticed to all apart from those scarred by this club’s ability to conjure catastrophe from rare opportunity.

On Christmas Day they were sixth, beneath fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur only on goal difference with American investors, attracted by clear potential, having bought into the club. Fast forward 66 days and 10 league games have yielded three measly points, only one of which has been accrued this year. No other top-flight team across Europe’s elite leagues, including Aston Villa, have a record that wretched.

That winless sequence equates to more than a quarter of the campaign but is made all the more baffling by the fact that, in the interim, they have still managed to ease beyond three top-half sides – Southampton, Stoke City and Spurs – to secure next week’s FA Cup quarter-final at Reading.

Pardew described those wins as having “put a gloss” on real form but, while the team have reserved their most slapdash passages of play for the games immediately after victorious cup ties, it would be too simplistic to argue that progress in the knockout competition has been a damaging distraction. They travel to Sunderland on Tuesday knowing breathing space from the cut-off is being squeezed. The bottom three could close to within five points by the weekend.

Pardew has endured similar slumps before, not least when his Newcastle side fell away from sixth at Christmas two seasons ago, and would rightly also point to a wider context. After 27 games last season, when he was two months into the job, Palace boasted 30 points. Retreat further to Tony Pulis’ tenure the previous season and they had 27 at this point and, on each occasion, they mustered another 18 from their last 11 matches. So the current tally of 32, with the Cup run thrown in, would normally be an indication of progress. Yet, back then, the team was on an eye-catching upturn under new management at this stage of the campaign. This year they are doing things in reverse, with awkward games against Liverpool, Leicester City and West Ham looming large.

Retaining a sense of perspective can be hard once panic sets in. It was there for all to see at the Hawthorns on Saturday, written on the faces across an alarmingly ramshackle back line as the home side scored three times in 19 chaotic first-half minutes. That was the first time West Bromwich had led by three goals at half-time in the revamped Premier League, and Sunderland’s Jermain Defoe will have watched Saido Berahino run riot with relish.

“This team’s DNA has been to fight, to battle, to scrap, and we didn’t do that in the first half there,” Pardew said. “That was the most disturbing thing. It was uncharacteristic, but that will worry our fans. Over the 14 months I’ve been here, this is the first time we’ve had any ‘down time’. But this group, let’s be honest, have been in relegation battles in the last two years and finished really strongly. It’s a fighting group. I have no fear going forward with them.”

Yet the second-half revival, with two finegoals from Connor Wickham and the mystifying failure to award Palace at least one penalty, should not be allowed to paper over the cracks. The worry is the team has become more reactive than proactive, a legacy of slack first-half displays against West Brom, Watford and Swansea. They may be suffering from a reluctance or inability to add to defensive ranks last summer, let alone in January when business was restricted as much by the Premier League’s internal financial fair play regulations as a lack of options on the market. There is probably insufficient competition for places given the manager’s only real options, with Pape Souaré banned and Martin Kelly restored to the team, are to offer Brede Hangeland or Adrian Mariappa a rare appearance. Hauling the goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey from the fray would have the whiff of a climbdown given Alex McCarthy has been ignored since September. Julián Speroni has not played at all.

More often, the focus has been drawn to attacking deficiencies. The injuries clearly left Pardew’s side blunted. Yannick Bolasie, such a key component to the team’s blistering counter-attacking style, missed 11 matches with a hip problem sustained while Lee Chung-yong celebrated this team’s last winning league goal, in mid-December, to heap huge responsibility on Wilfried Zaha in carrying the attacking threat in his absence. The latter has risen to the task, though he is now struggling with an ankle injury which saw him depart the club’s Beckenham training ground long before his team-mates had finished their session on Monday. Pardew rates him “60-40” to feature at the Stadium of Light, though that might be optimistic. Zaha’s absence would hardly be masked by Bakary Sako’s return.

Bolasie will surely start at the Stadium of Light, a venue where he hit a hat‑trick last season, but there will be no James McArthur, the Scotland international’s ankle still confined to a moon boot, or the hamstrung Jason Puncheon for a match in which Pardew will attempt to go back to basics. The partnership between Wickham and Emmanuel Adebayor might eventually prove productive but, for now, playing two up front leaves this side too open and easily overrun. Palace are happiest when massed in energetic, disciplined defence and able to spring on the counter. Therein lies their hope at Sunderland, where Pardew expects the hosts to build up the occasion as “their biggest game of the season”.

The manager needs some respite. A new contract has been agreed in principle but will only be signed once Premier League status has been assured. Pardew, like the other cult figures, stalwarts or icons on the staff – John Salako, Mark Bright, even Andy Woodman and Keith Millen – retains huge support among a fan-base desperate for him to succeed, with no appetite for change despite the team’s slump. But, while they and the hierarchy may benefit from greater leeway given their standing and all that has been achieved in the past six years, none will remain immune to criticism forever.

“It’s no good me telling my staff to pull their finger out if I’m not doing it myself, so I’ll do what I need to do,” Pardew said. “There are no excuses going forward, and still a lot of points available. And I’d still rather be in our position than that of six or seven clubs in the division, so maybe we ain’t as bad as we feel today.” One win would provide the kick-start. The problem is, Palace have been saying that since the festive season.