Ade Akinbiyi was unveiled as Crystal Palace's new £2.4million striker on Tuesday and immediately pledged to put his Leicester nightmare behind him, by scoring goals.

Akinbiyi , 27, has signed a three-and-a-half year contract, and may make his Palace debut against former club Wolves on Thursday.

He told the Guardian: "I just want to start scoring goals again and hopefully get back into the Premiership with Palace. I just can't wait to start and get back to how I was before."

He endured a personal nightmare at Leicester City this season, when his £5m price tag, a long goal drought, and the decline in the Foxes fortunes, saw him targeted by large sections of the crowd.

Despite scoring ten goals and making his international debut for Nigeria in his first Premiership season, Akinbiyi suffered a crisis of confidence, scoring just three goals in 24 games.

He said: "The confidence got to me at Leicester but I was strong enough to deal with it and I still believe I can score goals.

"I had a long think about it, and I thought Palace was the right move to get my career back on track.

"I'm back in London, I've got my family here so I think I'll be more relaxed and hopefully you'll see that on the pitch."

Born in Hackney, Adeola Akinbiyi, started his career at Norwich City, before moving to Gillingham where he hit a goal every other game. In June 1998 he signed for Bristol City for £1..2million, and 21 goals in his first season convinced Wolves to sign him for £3.5m.

He was a smash hit at Molineaux, scoring 16 goals in 36 games, and it was not long before Leicester signed him for £5m in July 2000.

Trevor Francis said: "He's proved himself to be of the standard required to be successful in the First Division.

"His qualities are that he's strong, powerful with very good pace. His goals record has been good in the first division.

"The only low point of his career has been the first two thirds of this season, but there's another third remaining where he can get back to scoring goals."

Indeed his career record still makes impressive reading; in 249 league and cup games he has scored 94 goals.

But that was not the only attribute that convinced Francis and chairman Simon Jordan to pursue the player.

Francis said: "You wont find a better defensive forward in the first division than Ade Akinbiyi. He has a very high work ethic. We bought him primarily to score goals but I also value the work that he does for the team. I expect him to be one of our best attacker but equally he'll be one of our best defenders."

A jubilant Simon Jordan told the Guardian: "I'm very very excited about Ade, it's a good signing for us.

"The attitude and work ethic of the player almost super-cedes the importance of the goals he may bring. But he'll score, no doubt about it, he'll score goals.

"Not only will his ability to score goals serve us well, but his link up with Freedman and Morrison will terrify defences."

Meanwhile Francis has insisted that he wants American international Jovan Kirovski to stay at the club. The striker's contract expires on June 30, and Palace risk losing him on a Bosman style free transfer.

Francis said: "We'd like to sign him up. I know the chairman has had initial talks with his agent and he was due to have further talks. We would like to keep him at Palace."

"He's happy here and he'd like to stay!"

Last week Francis moved to bolster his injury depleted defence by signing Australian international Sean Murphy on a month's loan from Sheffield United.

Francis said: "Sean had a very good debut and gave us an extra bit of presence and height that we needed. He has joined us for one month with a view to buy."

Tony Popovic and Kit Symons both picked up groin injuries against Coventry, and will be out for at least three weeks. Steve Thomson is still out with an ankle injury, but Jamie Smith should be fit for the Wolves game on Thursday.