March 15 2008

James Scowcroft

Neil Warnock has challenged JAMES SCOWCROFT to fire Crystal Palace into the play-offs.

SCOWCROFT scored his ninth goal of the season - and 100th of his career - in the 2-0 win over Barnsley with a close-range finish after Tom Soares fired Palace in front.

"He doesn't usually miss from a yard out," said Warnock. "When he plays, we play, and when he wants half an hour off, we have half an hour off. So the last seven games for us are down to how he feels. But nobody wanted to mark him today.

"I knew it wouldn't be an open game but I told the players at half-time to keep foraging and the opportunity would come.

"We were on our game at bit more today. You could say Barnsley had the cup on their minds, but they didn't when they won against Ipswich on Tuesday, and that would be taking a bit away from us.

"Someone at West Brom the other night commented that they wouldn't want to play us again - and I don't think many people would. I'm not making any apologies, we're not the finished article yet and you can only do what you can do with what you've got.

"But we've got a great team spirit and a will to keep our own goal intact - and it's a case of onto the next game."

Barnsley boss Simon Davey added: "In the first half we played well, we had good chances and didn't take them. In the second half Palace got the goal they needed and got the momentum from that."