Dougie Freedman is determined to win Crystal Palace's fight for survival so he can keep the nucleus of his squad together next season and push for the Premier League, reports . The Eagles boss would love to persuade loanees James Vaughan, Kagisho Dikgacoi and Anthony Gardner to remain at Palace on a permanent basis but admits he hasn't begun negotiations with any of the trio because he doesn't know what budget he will have available.

"Ideally I would love to keep this side together," said Freedman. "I do feel we have a good team now or certainly the basis of one. "I honestly feel that our league position is a false one.

"I think if you look at the form guide since I took over in January we are far higher up the table than we are right now.

"And I think this team, with one or two additions, would be capable of much better things next season.

"I know this club is capable of being a top flight club. Experience has shown me that. We have under achieved for too long.

"But right now we are still in a relegation scrap and I can't let myself think about next year yet. That's just the reality of the situation.

"I haven't started talking to the guys about their plans because I don't think it's fair. It's not fair to the chairman, the players or the club as a whole to start these discussions before we know what division we are in.

"It's almost impossible because we don't know the financial position. There is no point starting negotiations because the agents would ask questions that we can't answer at the moment.

"The focus is totally on keeping us up. Once we've got that out of the way then we can start talking about next season."