Exclusive: Palace predicament stuns Warnock

NEIL WARNOCK admits Crystal Palace's season is all about survival in the Championship after the London club were yesterday placed into administration.

The Eagles, who have debts of around 30m, became the latest victims of football's failing finances and are likely to be deducted 10 points today once the Football League have received the relevant paperwork.

Palace had been due to appear in court to face a winding-up order from the taxman and the club's travails mean all the Yorkshire clubs in this season's Championship are in a healthier position this morning. Sheffield Wednesday, for instance, had trailed Palace by nine points but, as a result of the bombshell from the capital, Alan Irvine's men will leapfrog over Warnock's men.

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The Owls have a further chance to extend their advantage over the Eagles tonight when taking on Scunthorpe at Glanford Park as the south London outfit face a daunting trip to leaders Newcastle United.

Eleswhere in the county, Middlesbrough and Sheffield United both celebrated having one less rival in the race for the play-offs by romping to comfortable victories.

The Blades beat Reading 3-0 at Bramall Lane to return to the top six, while Boro moved up to 10th place with a 4-1 win at Doncaster Rovers. There was further good news for Yorkshire's play-off chasing duo as Barnsley put a dent in Leicester City's challenge with a 1-0 win at Oakwell.

Warnock admits the news about Palace came as a huge shock to everyone at Selhurst Park but has vowed to lead his side out of trouble.

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Speaking exclusively to the Yorkshire Post from the team hotel on Tyneside, the former Blades manager said: "I only found out when our flight arrived in Newcastle at 5.15pm.

"Simon (Jordan, Palace chairman) has been working very hard to sort this out for the last eight or nine weeks. Everyone is devastated but all we can do now is get on with it.

"We had a meeting with the players at our hotel as soon as we arrived and have said to them 'let's get out of this for the fans'.

"With people like Shaun Derry we have exactly the right sort of character we need. Mind, he might be sold tomorrow so maybe I shouldn't rely on him too much.

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"Seriously, we have to stay together as a group and get ourselves out of trouble. Every one of the sides near the foot of the table are our rivals now. We just have to get on with it."

Palace's slide into administration came just 24 hours after Prime Minister Gordon Brown had joined the debate on football finance by admitting some clubs' debt levels are a cause for huge concern.

It continued the trend of recent years that has seen many sides drop out of the Premier League and suffer huge financial problems.

Since the advent of the Premier League 18 years ago, Bradford and now Palace have the unenviable record of having been in administration twice while Leeds United also suffered huge problems in the summer of 2007.

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Other former top-flight clubs to have been under the control of administrators include QPR, Leicester, Ipswich, Wimbledon, Derby and Southampton.

The P&A Partnership have been appointed administrators at Selhurst Park and the concern among supporters is star player Victor Moses may have to be sacrificed to keep the club running while the search for a buyer begins.

Brendan Guilfoyle, who along with Chris White and John Russell, is the joint administrator running Palace, said: "This club has been in the spotlight for some months with creditors pressing for payments and players anxious about their wages.

"Our role now is to find a buyer quickly to provide certainty for the employees, players and fans for the future. We are hoping our appointment will be shortlived as we understand there are many interested buyers."

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On the future of Palace's star player Moses, Guilfoyle added: "I have options. My priority is to make sure we have sufficient funding to complete the club's fixtures and one technique will be the sale of assets."