November 15 2007

Paul Ifill

Crystal Palace winger Paul Ifill admits he's endured a "nightmare" over the past few months.

Ifill, 28, made his first start of the season against QPR on Saturday after being plagued with hamstring and achilles problems.

He had to have his pelvis re-alligned due to one leg being shorter than the other, then spent days in the gym training his body to move in a different way.

To make matters worse, he recently split from girlfriend Elle Isaac, who appeared on ITV's WAGS Boutique show earlier this year.

"It does you're head in, working on your own in the gym," he said. "The last few months have been a nightmare, both here and at home. I split up with my girlfriend, and she moved back to Somerset with my little girl.

"When times are hard at home, football acts as a release because you can come to training and forget about your worries for a few hours. But I wasn't interested in being here, because I wanted to sort stuff out at home.

"But then things there were just as bad, and it becomes a vicious circle. So maybe that slowed my progress down. But it's nice to be back playing football."

The return of Ifill comes as a welcome boost to Eagles boss Neil Warnock whose side is desperately crying out for pace and victories.

"If we get a few wins, people are probably going to talk about us as play-off contenders," he said. "At least we're creating chances now, which wasn't always the case.

"I had a few on Saturday, and had I been a bit sharper I would've fancied my chances of taking at least one of them."