Warnock helped by return of Chamakh

Neil Warnock has revealed Marouane Chamakh will be fit for Crystal Palace’s clash with Leicester City after overcoming a hamstring injury.

The Moroccan striker started Palace’s first three games of the campaign and found the net in the 3-1 defeat to West Ham, but has since missed the last two.

In a media conference on Thursday, Warnock confirmed that the forward is available for Saturday’s outing against Leicester at Selhurst Park, as Palace receive a boost to their attacking options.

“He’s trained the last week,” Warnock said. “He was very close last weekend [against Everton] but we felt it wasn’t worth the risk. Other than that everybody is fit.”

Under Warnock, Palace are unbeaten in the league with five points from three matches against Newcastle United, Burnley and Everton, and they go into the weekend on the back of a confidence-boosting 3-2 victory at Goodison Park.

That was soured somewhat by an extra-time reverse at the hands of Newcastle in the League Cup on Wednesday and Warnock plans to revert back to much of the same XI that started at Everton.

“I was very happy with it [the Newcastle game],” he said. “It gave me a chance to look at everyone. It gave me stuff to think about against a strong Newcastle team. It showed we have a strong squad.

“There won’t be many changes from Everton. We were fantastic at Everton, but it’s nice to look at the group.

“We looked at everyone. We went forward whenever we could, we looked like we wanted to play football in the cup. That’s why we enjoyed it because everybody wanted to play football.

“I was told we didn’t come from behind very often last year, but we’ve done so in two of three games I’ve been here.

“The character showed through [at Everton] and when the equaliser came the belief came. We were so much better from then, it was a team performance, that’s what pleased me.”