Crystal Palace's Ian Holloway rues nightmare transfer week

Crystal Palace manager Ian Holloway has described the past week as "one of the worst of my life", as the Eagles coach struggles to bring transfer targets to Selhurst Park.

Holloway has been chasing a host of signings this summer, with the aim of building a Palace squad capable of achieving Premier League survival.

He told Sky Sports News: "Myself and the chairman are going to sit down and have a look at the targets we have shot at, and go from a scattergun approach to the rifle. We have got to knock some targets over. Now we have found out what it might cost us, where we are going, I'm sure if he was here today he wouldn't have been too happy with that either.

"We have got to try and give the lads we have got a chance to feel good about themselves when in a couple of weeks' time they are going to start in the toughest division in the world. This week has probably been one of the worst of my life because things have broken down for all different reasons. It's just an accumulation of coming into this so late.

"I was half expecting it but it is a little bit worse than it's been before. I thought we were signing someone the other day and they went somewhere else. It's all a bit crazy really. You get phone calls, and phone calls on phone calls from people who are not even anything to do with the deal and then suddenly they think they are."

Palace suffered a 3-0 defeat to League One side Crawley Town in a pre-season friendly yesterday, despite naming a strong side that included new striker Dwight Gayle.