Joe Ledley wants Crystal Palace to cash in on their next three fixtures and beat their points total from last season before the going gets tough in May.

The Welsh midfielder starred in Monday’s 2-1 victory over Manchester City at Selhurst Park.

That result took Palace to 11th place in the Premier League and onto 39 points, six short of last season’s haul.

Next up for Alan Pardew’s side is tomorrow’s trip to Sunderland before back-to-back home games against West Brom and Hull.

But with Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool all to play in May, Ledley is eager to take advantage of the next few games.

“We need to keep our heads down and get seven more points to beat last season and that would be an unbelievable achievement,” the 28-year-old said.

“With a performance like the one on Monday we can go out there and beat anyone.

“It’s going to be difficult after April but we’ve got good games to look forward to now and hopefully we can go out there and pick up some points.

“We finished in a good position past year in the league and hopefully we can get another good finish now.”

The Manchester City victory was Palace’s third in a row and fourth in their last five Premier League games to lift them 13 points ahead of the drop zone.

Ledley described Monday’s success over the current champions under the lights at Selhurst Park as special and is confident his side are now out of the relegation battle.

“Hopefully that win now makes us safe,” the Welsh midfielder said.

“Until we are mathematically safe we just have to keep our heads down and keep working hard.

“It was a very important win especially with the teams below us all picking up points in the relegation zone.

“Manchester City are a fantastic team.

“In the first half we were defending for our lives and we knew if we could get the ball we could counter attack and hurt them.

“You could see how good they are on the ball and with movement and to beat them was special.

“As a unit and a team, everyone had to work hard. We kept our shape and worked hard for each other.

“We just seem like we can score and look dangerous when we attack as well. Credit to the attackers, they’ve been very good for us.

“From the beginning of the season we believed that any game we went into we were capable of winning and we will see how many points we can get now from here.”

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