January 22 2001

Crystal Palace

Palace fan favourite Dougie Freedman refuses to complain about his current role at the club. At the moment he is not more than a substitute at Selhurst Park despite scoring goals against Nottingham Forest last week and Gillingham on Saturday.

On Saturday Freedman scored an important goal against Gillingham after replacing NEIL RUDDOCK. He scored Palace's first goal being 2-0 down and Palace went on to get a draw from the game.

Freedman currently starts as a substitute because of the on-form duo Mikael Forssell and Clinton Morrison who are the first choice of manager Alan Smith.

The striker said: "The manager is in a nice situation because he has three strikers in good form at the moment. Strikers often go through patches where they seem to get a lot of goals.

"As we all seem to be in that spell at the same time that can only be good for the club and let's hope it continues for the rest of the season."

Meanwhile, the Palace youth team travel to Ipswich Town for the FA Youth Cup fourth round tie today.

The Eagles beat Newcastle United 4-1 in a replay in the third round.

Ipswich Town coach Paul Goddard said: "We have watched Palace and their trademark is that they can stop you playing.

"They will close us down very quickly and try and stop you playing the ball out from the back, but if we can get on the ball enough we can score goals."