Holloway hits out at Udinese's Hertfordshire franchise

Ian Holloway not happy with the loophole being exploited by Udinese

It was an enjoyable game and I don't think many would have backed Palace to get anything when the home side went 2-0 up in just 14 minutes.

You'd have thought Palace boss Ian Holloway might have been a happy man after the recovery but he was angry and turned that anger on Watford and the way they are going about things this season.

Holloway admitted to not having known about their policy of bringing in 11 loan players from host club Udinese. He must have been the only person involved in the Championship who didn't, but when he found out he didn't like it one little bit.

"They've got some world class players that they've borrowed from almost one club," he blasted. "It seems pretty ludicrous to me."

He went on: "We're only allowed to borrow two players from the same team in this country. Unlimited abroad? That gives a licence to people to buy English clubs, chuck all their players over here and have a reserve team.

"What if Barcelona wanted to buy us and play their 'B' team for us? We've got to sort this out. No arguing, what their manager is doing and how they're doing it is fantastic. If there's a loophole, they've found it  and some of those players are as good as any I've seen in the world.

"But I can't believe there's such a massive loophole, and my question is - where are those English players going to come from?"

Both clubs were nicely placed in the play offs ahead of the game and both sides still are after a weekend that saw none of the top six win. Cardiff could only draw at Huddersfield and Hull were beaten at Brighton.

That left Leicester and Middlesbrough and they managed to lose against teams in the bottom three. Leicester went down at Peterborough where they had the shock of a five figure crowd and Middlesbrough were beaten by Barnsley at home. It's their fifth successive defeat.

Yes, Barnsley and Peterborough both won and so did Bristol City and this had to be sweet revenge for their new manager Sean O'Driscoll who got one over Nottingham Forest, the club that sacked him on Boxing Day.

The big news at Forest is that Little Billy Davies is still there. He was appointed last week, took over this morning and latest press reports suggest there have been fall outs as yet. That must be a record both for him and the Forest chairman.

As for the bottom three, despite all winning that's where they remain but they've moved ever closer to the likes of Sheffield Wednesday, Ipswich and Wolves.

There's been some strange goings on at Elland Road. It's only five minutes since they were taken over by GFH Capital, a Dubai based investment bank. The takeover, reported at £52 million, was completed in December but already they are fending off bids.

They have confirmed that they've rejected an offer for a majority stake understood to be from a Yorkshire based consortium. Just last week, Adam Pearson, previously of Hull and Derby, admitted to be interested in getting back into football with Leeds.

In a statement, GFH Capital said: "As can be expected with a club as fantastic as Leeds United, since our acquisition we have received several offers to invest in the club alongside us. The most recent offer was for a majority stake and has not been accepted."

What could be accepted very soon is the arrival of a new manager with Neil Warnock's position looking less and less secure.

The results over the weekend have seen us drop to ninth. Brighton are now in seventh place and just two points from the play offs. Had we won it would have been us in there and only a point behind Middlesbrough. One way or another we'll be further behind by the time we play again.

Brighton could be our next opponents. Right now we are still scheduled to play Huddersfield this Saturday but, farcically, have to await the result of their cup replay tomorrow night.

The results and stats are below along with the leading goalscorers, the red and yellow cards per club, the highest and lowest attendances and this week's fixtures.