CRYSTAL Palace manager Neil Warnock got into the party spirit after seeing his side beat Colchester.

However, rather than celebrating his side's victory over the U's, the former Sheffield United and Notts County boss was rejoicing the fact that the Eagles will, at the very least, be a Coca-Cola Championship team next season.

When Warnock took over from Peter Taylor in October as Eagles boss, the club were in a lowly position in the table and had won only two of their opening ten matches.

But Warnock has helped to turn their season around and although his side are in touching distance of the play-offs, the charismatic Eagles boss preferred to lift a glass to the south London club's safety.

"I'll be cracking open a bottle of champagne because we're safe," he said.

"When we were second from bottom, if you'd have told my chairman we'd be three points off the play-offs now, he'd have said you were in cloud-cuckoo land."