“As you saw with Olise, we thought he'd got there after about three months and he immediately got injured again and missed another month and they don't want that to happen.
“We've got to be patient with Jes, but I think it's very positive to see him out there every day. His attitude is absolutely first class and I'd be surprised if he doesn't beat their deadline as it were. I think he'll beat that.”
On belief in beating Manchester City…
“I think you've got to do that everywhere. We went into the game against Liverpool on Saturday with the odds on us getting a win being very, very low.
“I honestly believe that we would've got a win had we not had the injuries, which forced off the goalkeeper and [Odsonne] Edouard and Jefferson Lerma. If we hadn't had the sending off, I think we'd have gone on to win the game.
“So that's what prompts me to believe we can do it again. So I don't have any worries in that respect, but it's going to be tough because they're good. You don't win leagues year after year and Champions League unless you've got a very good team and that you are very good at what you're doing.
“We were aware of all that. It would take an exceptional performance from us to get anything from the game, but it took an exceptional performance to take the game as close as we did against Liverpool last weekend.
“So I'm hoping I'll see that exceptional performance again.”
On his long-term future…
“You've got to be careful suggesting you're going to make a decision on the basis of one particular day when you feel that way. I don't know whether I want to [continue] or not, but I certainly don't have it as a goal to make certain I can keep going and keep going and keep going.
“I know that the day will come when it's no longer possible for me to work, so I won't have the offer if you like to work at the level I want to work at. So I know that day is going to come.
“I thought it was coming at the end of last season, but it was prolonged by the club asking me to stay on for this season. That's what I'm doing. I don't have any plans or any thoughts beyond that. I want to do well this season.
“I want to help the club have a good season and then that will be me finished with Crystal Palace Football Club and whether or not I should want to continue somewhere else, I don't know.
“I don't want to say because I had all that, well was it two or three getting on for two and a half years ago now? I had all that for about four or five months: ‘You're going to be retire, you're going to carry on?’
“And then of course don't retire. Not that I actually said I was going to, but I got sort of retired because people were reading as they thought between the lines in what I was saying. So I got retired then that retirement, lasted four or five months before I went back to Watford, and then another five or six months happened before I came back to Crystal Palace.
