Palace's desperate fight against relegation has taken on a distinct feeling of hopelessness after the weekend's results.
With everyone else picking up points at the bottom and Palace eight points adrift of fourth-bottom Spurs before last night's (Wednesday) match at Newcastle the Eagles' chances of staying up seem remote at best.
Even the appointment of Attilio Lombardo as player coach could do nothing to stop them sinking to their eighth straight defeat at Villa Park on Saturday.
Palace's worst ever league run seems to be the final nail in the coffin to the Premiership survival hopes.
At last Friday's downbeat press conference at Selhurst Park, Steve Coppell appeared practically resigned to relegation, talking of the decision to appoint Lombardo and Tomas Brolin as temporary managers as a "bold move" taken because there was "nothing to lose."
He talked of the past few weeks as feeling like a "slow strangulation".
Lombardo, just 32, now has the unenviable task of guiding the good ship Palace to safety with Coppell upstairs as director of football.
He likened the size of the task to taking over control of a sinking boat. Through an interpreter he said: "The attitude of the team is very important and I hope they will follow what I say."
Midfielder Jamie Fullarton said: "It is up to us to respond and get ourselves out of the situation we are in. There are still plenty of games and plenty of points to fight for."
STOP PRESS.
NEWCASTLE UNITED 1 - CRYSTAL PALCE 2.
LOMBARDO AND JANSEN SEAL REMARKABLE VICTORY FOR RELEGATED - HAUNTED PALACE AT ST JAMES' PARK ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT.
PALACE REMAIN BOTTOM OF THE LEAGUE BUT SCANDAL - HIT NEWCASTLE ARE NOW ALSO DRAWN INTO THE RELEGATION BATTLE.
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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