Palace chairman Ron Noades has told Eagles' fans: "I'm still the chairman and I've got to run the club as I see fit."

He said at the weekend he was staggered to read Teletext to discover Steve Coppell had resigned, to be replaced by Terry Venables and that the club had signed Paul Gascoigne for £3m.

He told Palace Radio: "You don't talk to the press until you've done your deals. The club never put in a bid for Gascoigne. Whether Mark Goldberg made a bid with his money I don't know but people come into football thinking it's easy to run a club. Very soon they realise it isn't."

Prospective chairman Goldberg (pictured) played for a Palace XI team in a charity match last Wednesday.

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