McCarthy: Weather won the day

Julian Speroni sees no reason why Crystal Palace cannot take all three points from promotion rivals Watford in their crunch clash on Friday night.

The fifth-placed Eagles make the short trip to Hertfordshire just one place and one point behind their hosts in the npower Championship table, with both sides knowing victory will take them into the automatic promotion places for a day or so at least.

The Hornets are in a rich vein of form, winning four of their last five league matches, while Palace's 2-1 victory over Charlton last Saturday was their first success in four attempts.

But goalkeeper Speroni is confident Palace can hold their own at Vicarage Road.

"They (Watford) are a very strong team, as are all the teams in this division to be fair," he said.

"But we're going to be play our game and we're going to try to win. They are on a good run at the moment but there's no reason why we can't match them. We're looking forward to it."

The Blades' home game with Crawley was postponed after the waterlogged pitch failed a 1pm pitch inspection due to melting snow.

"The groundstaff worked as hard as they could - as they have throughout these tough winter months - to get the game on, but ultimately the weather got the better of us, which is rare at Bramall Lane," McCarthy told the club's official website.

"I believe it's the first game we have had a game called off because of the pitch in nearly 10 years."

McCarthy added: "We were concerned overnight and the blizzards in the morning had left the fixture in real danger.

"The official spoke at length with the Football League, who in turn looked at the Met Office forecast which predicted more snow - and it duly arrived."