May 13 2011

Julian Speroni

JULIAN SPERONI has paid tribute to Dougie Freedman after he steered Crystal Palace to Championship safety.

Freedman came in midway through the season in place of the sacked George Burley and ensured Palace avoided relegation with a game to spare.

One of his first moves was to tighten up the Eagles' leaky defence and goalkeeper SPERONI reckons the foundations are in place for a good season next term under the Palace boss.

"I think he has done a great job," said SPERONI. "He has made us more solid in the second half of the season, not conceding so many goals and I think that has been the difference between staying up and going down.

"I think there is a lot more to come. He has big ambitions and can achieve a lot more here over the next few years.

"It's been a very stressful season for us, not the way we wanted it to pan out. At the start we wanted to be up there near the play-offs but things have turned out a different way.

"The second half of the season the target was simply not to go down and we didn't so we can take a little satisfaction from that.

"I think overall you couldn't really see it as a success though because we are not where we wanted to be. But if you think of the second half of the season and consider where we were then it is a success because we stayed up."