PREMIER LEAGUE

Allardyce hopes box sets can help him stop his House of Cards falling down

SAM ALLARDYCE hopes watching The Killing can help him keep Crystal Palace alive in the Premier League.

He revealed he has become hooked on box sets and is ploughing through them to help cope with the stress of Palace’s relegation battle.

The Eagles boss said: “I’ve this massive, massive addiction to box sets now. I’m a box set fanatic.

“At the moment I’m watching The Killing. And I think the variety you can get throughout those channels

can take your mind off things and help you relax. It’s important to try to switch off.

“It’s not easy in this window and when you’ve taken over a football club, and I have to say I’ve lost a fair bit of sleep thinking about it.

“I like political stuff, Scandal, House of Cards . . they are very, very good. The difficulty is finding a new one as I’ve watched so many.” Tonight Allardyce insists he will be focused only on Bournemouth after admitting his head was “scrambled” the last time he had a game on deadline day – which he believes should be fixture free. And although he will be desperate for positive news before today’s 11pm deadline he will leave the transfers to chairman Steve Parish after a nightmare experience at West Ham. He recalled: “I stayed until 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon to sign Nicky Maynard the striker from Bristol City and Ricardo Vaz Te and then drove straight to Ipswich where we got tanked 5-1. It was really as we were right up there fighting for promotion. My head wasn’t in it because it was scrambled after all we’d been doing in the window.

“Those two players ended up being major forces in West Ham being promoted but I don’t intend on being in that situation again.”

Cherries boss Eddie Howe is preparing for Palace’s visit insisting Callum Wilson is not for sale for any amount.

The striker is a £20million target for West Brom to replace Saido Berahino, but Howe said: “In my mind there is no price he could be sold for.”