Crystal Palace’s three-year dream is still going strong ahead of the final international break of the campaign.

After stuttering to the play-offs in 2012 before stunning Brighton and then Watford to reach the Premier League, not even the most optimistic of Palace fans would tip the club to an 11th place finish in our return to the promised land. Likewise, very few would have suggested that we had any chance of matching or even beating such a feat in our subsequent season.

The reality is now Alan Pardew’s Palace have a great chance of bettering the 45 points and the 11th-placed finish that was incredibly achieved last campaign under Tony Pulis. Pardew has lifted the club to the next level - you can feel it on the terraces and see it on the pitch.

Everyone at the club is starting to finally feel like the top flight is a place where we belong. We are no longer seen as the rowdy crowd merely gate-crashing the Premier League party, but a club who genuinely deserve to a part of the division. The pundits have since changed their tune, so much so we are no longer even considered when it comes to talking about the battle for survival.

Pardew said after the 2-1 win at Stoke: “Thirty six points is us done really, with eight to go, so I am really, really pleased.  It’s not enough but, with eight games, and the way we are playing, you would expect us to comfortably be there.”

It is a clear indication of the confidence that is being embedded into the club. Not many Palace manager’s would have dared to say such a comment with 24 more points to play for.

Nine points from the final eight games would see us equal last season’s tally and should assure a finish of at least 12th, but a top half finish is the talk of the town at the moment with the club being closer to eighth place than the relegation zone. The importance of finishing a successive season comfortably in the middle of the pack is the calibre of players we will start to attract.

Pardew has already admitted that he has begun discussions with some of Europe’s top clubs about the availability of some players, something that would never have been possible if we had scraped to safety two seasons in a row.

With the entire club singing from the same hymn sheet, and a takeover seemingly imminent, there is a feel-good factor at Palace which has been missing since Pardew was last at the club as a player more than 20 years ago.