Crunch time for defiant Kember

Steve Kember is realistic enough to know that tonight's Carling Cup match at Blackpool kicks off a month-long spell which will decide whether he spends Christmas Day around the family fire or out on the training ground.

The club were in pole position after opening the season with three successive wins but they have since plummeted to 19th and that trend cannot continue if Kember is to remain in his job.

He has guided the club to only one win in their last 12 Division One games and yet the Palace fans have not turned on the manager who made his name as a grafting, energetic midfielder at Selhurst Park.

Kember has been an emergency manager on three occasions, saving the club from relegation twice, and fans don't forget that kind of pedigree.

Millwall sacked Mark McGhee with the team in eighth place and six points off the top and, although Palace chairman Simon Jordan has made no public - or private - noises that Kember's tenure could be coming to a close, his patience is not endless.

Away from home on a cold night against a Blackpool team fired up by that archcompetitor, Steve McMahon, doesn't present an obvious turning point for Palace's fortunes. They travel to Wigan at the weekend and have fixtures with Preston, Crewe, Walsall, Stoke and Coventry in the next four weeks.

Wigan, arguably, apart, all appear winable so if the slide continues, Kember knows his number - otherwise known as the P45 - will be up.

But if the pressure is getting to him, he is disguising it well.

"I have never had a hint that I won't be allowed to finish the job I started," said Kember.

"Look, I have a good bunch of lads and I know it sounds a simple thing to say, but we have to keep plugging away.

"A win - any kind of win - is what we need at the moment because that lifts confidence more than anything else.

"Blackpool won't be easy. They are probably thinking this is the right time to play us and it is up to us to approach the game in the right way, show the right attitude and make sure we go through."

Much has been made of the Kember-Jordan tete-a-tetes after matches - sometimes the summit is on the pitch, as at Norwich, and sometimes on the team coach, as at Gillingham after Saturday's 1-0 defeat.

"We talk after every game, we always have," said Kember. "And I have never been under any pressure."

Striker Neil Shipperley insists the players must take some blame for Palace's dreadful run.

"The players are all aware of what is happening with Steve, but we are the ones who must take responsibility," he said.

"The management can't be blamed.

Everyone must stick together and I hope we can make amends. We want to beat Blackpool for our manager. We have to stay positive and think one win can turn everything around.

"We are going through a really difficult time at the moment and it doesn't matter what the competition is - we just need a win. It has been very frustrating because we are a good team, but a victory will boost morale."

Palace welcome back midfielder Danny Butterfield after a calf problem for this third-round tie.

However, defenders Darren Powell and Tony Popovic are out with thigh and Achilles injuries respectively.