March 6 2003

Simon Jordan

Crystal Palace have ruled out signing Sunderland striker Marcus Stewart on loan.

Trevor Francis had hoped to sign Stewart until the end of the season to lift Palace's play-off chances as the Eagles have struggled to score.

But Simon Jordan said: "We made an inquiry, it didn't go very far, that's the end of it.

"We asked about Marcus Stewart a couple of weeks ago because he was not playing at Sunderland.

"But we're not going to hound Howard Wilkinson, he has enough of his own problems to let a player out."

Meanwhile, Ade Akinbiyi's agent, Andrew Mills, confirmed that Stoke are interested in him.

He told planetfootball.com: "Discussions have been ongoing between Crystal Palace and Stoke for the past 24 hours.

"Tony Pulis is keen to work with Ade again at Stoke but there are certain things which need to be resolved before anything can happen."