Allardyce predicts Palace survival bid will go down to the wire

Crystal Palace's latest Premier League setback has led newly installed manager Sam Allardyce to predict that the struggling club's bid to avoid relegation will come down to the last two weeks of the season.

Allardyce replaced Alan Pardew as manager on December 23, but has won just one point in five Premier League games since his appointment and watched the team slip into the bottom three following Saturday's 1-0 defeat by Everton. 

"It's a process of adjusting to my methods which can't happen overnight," Allardyce, who has never been relegated during his managerial career, told British media.

"I will try and continue to grow the players to get better, and try and say: 'I've been here before, I know what it takes to get out of this particular predicament, and I can only do that if you respond to what we do.'

"That is a day-to-day process that's ever relenting from now until the end of the season. If we get safe it'll be the last two weeks, if we're lucky."

Allardyce, who steered Sunderland to safety last season before leaving the club for an ill-fated stint as England manager, felt Palace's survival would come down to the last few games of the season.

"It was the same at Sunderland," he added. "It was two games to go before we got safe, it'll be the same for us all down there.

"We'll have our ups, we'll have our downs; we'll have to put something like four or five wins on the trot together, which can happen, if you get the right belief going quickly."

Palace, who are 18th in the standings, host Manchester City in the FA Cup on Saturday, before visiting 12th-placed Bournemouth in the Premier League on January 31. - Reuters

Source :Times Of Oman