Palace v Cardiff City

Selhurst Park, Tuesday 8.00pm

Story so far

This season was meant to be one for pushing on towards the play-offs for Cardiff.

Midtable is a position familiar to the Bluebirds supporters but they were hoping for a little more, especially with the signings of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Robbie Fowler and Trevor Sinclair at the start of the campaign.

But Cardiff do have something different going for them this term. On Sunday, they will be travelling to Teesside to take on Middlesbrough in the FA Cup 6th round.

With every chance of progressing to the semi-Ffnals, Cardiff may well rest a few players or even take it easy as they look to accept a mediocre league position but with a chance of progressing to the cup finals at least. Their name is already on the Cup from when they won the competition in 1927 - Cardiff are the only non-English team to win the competition, a feat of its own.

Team news

Clint Hill, TOM SOARES and James Scowcroft will all be vying for recalls after serving bans in the 1-0 win at Preston on Saturday.

Shefki Kuqi is likley to be left out of the side after being transfer listed by Eagles manager Neil Warnock.

Neil Danns is absent with a hamstring injury, while left-back Tony Craig (shoulder) is still sidelined despite coming through a reserve game last week.

Cardiff midfielder Joe Ledley faces a late fitness test after missing the last three matches. Warren Feeney and Robbie Fowler are the Bluebirds' long-term injuries.

Quotes

Roy Hodgson

"At this stage of the season it's difficult to put five or six wins together. With the pitches and everything else there are a lot of elements that go together and it has to all come off.

"We have the players who can do that. They know what I feel but putting it into practice is a different thing. It will be interesting to see how we perform in the next two games.

"They've got strong squads and they're more secure financially. So we all have to fight for the sixth position. Sixth place are Ipswich, who have spent almost £3million to get that position, so they should be favourites.

"But really you can't say anybody is favourites. There are eight teams vying for that one position and it makes it interesting.

"The difference between getting that spot and not could be anything. It could be a referee's decision or, as we've seen this year, you can play well and lose.

"It's a mixture of everything; you need a bit of luck, you need to play as well as you can and the big players have got to perform. I'm sure that the team that does that will get into the play-offs.

"Our lads felt a little bit sorry for ourselves but one good result like we've had can perk yourself up and you can see that in training.

"We've two home games and we have to get as many points on the board as we can. We've got eleven games remaining that I'm looking forward to. We can see light at the end of the tunnel and sometimes it takes suspensions and injuries to show you the way."

Dave Jones

"If there are minds on the FA Cup game then they want an absolute kicking because they shouldn't be.

"Of course if players don't perform at Palace then I would pull them out for the Cup game. I have no sentiment when it comes to that. With the Middlesbrough game coming up it is a good time for the players returning to stake their claim.

"We will be able to use that over the next day or so by saying, 'Look, if you are in the team at Palace and have the shirt you can put yourself into contention for probably one of the biggest days at this football club in a long time'.

"We need to go and win at Palace because the points tally over the last four or five games has not been good enough.

"We have had opportunities to keep in the pack in the league. If you look at the teams around us then by just taking six points from the last 15 we would have been right back in it. That is the frustrating thing. Basically we keep blowing our chances to stay within the pack and that is annoying."

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Cardiff City - league stats

Position	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Points
14th	34	11	11	12	44

Full league table

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Cardiff City - current form

Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against
5	1	1	3	3	4

Full form table

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Our home record v Cardiff City

Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against
26	18	5	3	55	23

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Last five results

Date	Type	Home Team	Score	Away Team
06/11/2007	League	Cardiff City	1 - 1	Crystal Palace
30/12/2006	League	Cardiff City	0 - 0	Crystal Palace
14/10/2006	League	Crystal Palace	1 - 2	Cardiff City
04/02/2006	League	Crystal Palace	1 - 0	Cardiff City
17/09/2005	League	Cardiff City	1 - 0	Crystal Palace

All time results

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One to watch

Paul Parry

Ref watch

S W MATHIESON

Last meeting

Cardiff City 1-1 Palace

Tuesday November 06 2007

Cardiff City: Schmeichel, McNaughton, Purse, Johnson, Capaldi, Parry (Sinclair 79), McPhail, Rae, Ledley, Fowler (Thompson 60), Hasselbaink

Subs not used: Oakes, Loovens, Whittingham

Bookings: Thompson

Goals: Purse 9

Palace: Speroni, Lawrence, Hudson, Fonte, Hill, Watson, Bostock (Moses 72), Songo'o (Ifill 45), Soares, Kennedy, Scowcroft (Morrison 45)

Subs not used: Flinders, Fletcher

Bookings: Songo'o, Lawrence, Morrison

Goals: Watson 44 (pen)

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