Crystal Palace manager Sam Allardyce admits he won't rush back goalkeeper Steve Mandanda.

The French international has been out since November with a knee injury.

"He is in full training, but we have to play Steve [Mandanda] and a number of others in two things – put them in U23 games to get match practice or play behind closed doors games, we have got to do both," he said.

"If we don't, for me that is where we have picked up too many injuries.

"When a player says he is fit again, he comes and trains and gets thrown straight back in after two or three days of training and ends up getting injured again.

"The injury list when I got here was rather large and that's probably why they got thrown in so quickly.

"Now we are not struggling so much for numbers and make sure that the player is really ready to come back in and when he is, he has to keep his shirt."