Nottm Forest v Palace

City Ground, Saturday 3.00pm

Neil Shipperley

Team news

He is likely to replace striker Dougie Freedman, despite scoring in last weekend's 2-2 draw at home to Reading.

On-loan centre-back Mark Hudson is suspended after his red card against Gillingham, so Mikele Leigertwood signed from Wimbledon last month, will make his first start.

Forest have a host of injury problems. Goalkeeper Barry Roche will keep his place in the side in place of Darren Ward, who has a damaged spinal disc.

Danny Sonner has a toe injury, while Marlon King starts a three-match suspension. Michael Dawson (back from suspension), Gareth Williams (back) and Nick Barmby (hamstring) all return.

Nottm Forest - league stats

Position	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Points
20th	35	9	11	15	38

Full league table

Nottm Forest - current form

Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against
5	2	2	1	5	4

Full form table

Our away record v Nottm Forest

Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against
25	5	4	16	22	51

Last five results

Date	Type	Home Team	Score	Away Team
13/12/2003	League	Crystal Palace	1 - 0	Nottm Forest
08/02/2003	League	Nottm Forest	2 - 1	Crystal Palace
09/11/2002	League	Crystal Palace	0 - 0	Nottm Forest
20/12/2001	League	Crystal Palace	1 - 1	Nottm Forest
25/08/2001	League	Nottm Forest	4 - 2	Crystal Palace

All time results

One to watch

Nicky Barmby

Nottm Forest's top scorer

Andy Reid - 11 goals

Nottm Forest's bad boy

Wes Morgan - 4 1

Palace old boys

Gareth Taylor - 27/09/95 - 07/03/96

Having been (in my eyes) wrongly exiled from a plummeting Leeds United team ex-England international Barmby has slotted perfectly into the Forest setup. In his 3 games on loan thus far he has created a number of chances and managed to put one in the net against Gillingham last week. He is a very quick, agile player who has a great footballing brain. He thinks ahead and when he gets it right it usually means curtains for the defence of the opposing team. In this case he will be looking to play ball through to either ex-Palace ace Gareth Taylor or Andy Reid who is Forest's top scorer now Marlon Harewood has left, so he is a massive threat. Lets just be thankful David Johnson isn't quite fit enough for this match like he almost was. We might have had a little problem with him.

Last meeting

Palace 1-0 Nottm Forest

Saturday December 13 2003

Palace: Myhre, Smith (Symons, 88), Popovic, Edwards, Borrowdale, Butterfield, Riihilahti, Hughes, Gray, Johnson (Freedman, 72), Routledge

Subs not used: Berthelin, Watson, Black

Goal: Johnson 12

Nottm Forest: Ward, Thompson, Walker, Morgan (sent off 71), Robertson (Doig, 25), Sonner (Westcarr, 81), Bopp, Williams, Reid, King, Jess (Gunnarsson, 72)

Subs not used: Roche, Gardner