CRYSTAL Palace manager Dougie Freedman's weekly column for the Croydon Advertiser

AFTER two decent points in our last couple of games I'm looking for the side to go out and produce another good performance this weekend against Doncaster.

It's no secret that we've drawn too many games at home so far this season for a team hoping to make the play-offs but hopefully we will be able to start putting that right on Saturday.

I certainly feel we owe Doncaster one after losing up at their place earlier in the season in Dean Saunders' first game in charge of Rovers.

To be honest I thought we, as a management team, got our tactics wrong that day but we've learnt from that performance and will line up differently this time.

We've had a good look at the video from that game and in our normal course of watching them ahead of this time I think we've identified a few weaknesses and feel we've got the attacking players to exploit them.

That said, I think Saunders had done a good job with them since he took over last September. I can certainly sympathise with the position he arrived in as we were down the bottom of the table when I took over here too.

It can be really hard taking over a team at the bottom of the table as, in the middle of the season, you can't really bring in too many new ideas at once.

Certainly I was conscious of not trying to do too much too soon. We brought Lennie Lawrence and Tony Popovic which made a big difference and then tried to introduce one idea a week so that the players wouldn't be overloaded with new ideas.

Despite their league position, though, Doncaster do have some very good players and we know we will have to work very hard for the win and it might not be until the later stages of the game that we get ahead.

We are patient and will approach this game exactly the same way that we would if it was Brighton or Millwall coming to Selhurst Park.

There are two ways of looking at our result with Middlesbrough last Saturday.

I can see the point of view that says it was two points dropped considering we had chances to have won the game but I prefer to take the positives that we've gone and outplayed a very good side on their own patch.

Make no mistake about it Middlesbrough will be right up there at the end of the season but we have been able to have more of the possession and more shots on target than them.

I thought there were a lot of stand-out performances and I was especially pleased with the way Chris Martin and Jermaine Easter played together

Tony Mowbray was certainly complimentary about the way we played, and I'm sure our supporters who made the long trip north with agree with him, although I'd of course preferred to have left with more tangible proof of our superiority.

Things are looking good in the squad at the moment and, with Dean Moxey available again, we're only really waiting on Jonathan Williams. I know the supporters will be as pleased as I am to say he'll probably be available again at the end of the month.

Obviously he'll probably need a couple of game for the reserves to get his match-fitness back up to scratch but with any luck he'll be available for the first team again in the not too distant future.