Pardew issues AJ apology

Alan Pardew has apologised to Crystal Palace for confirming that he was interested in signing the under-contract player.

Pardew was heavily criticised by Palace manager Iain Dowie for confirming that he would be interested in signing Palace's Andy Johnson should the opportunity arise.

And now the West Ham manager has issued an apology to Dowie and Palace for speaking out out of turn.

"I was asked if I would be interested in Andrew Johnson," said Pardew.

"I said we are interested in any quality player and the mistake I made was to mention Andrew Johnson's name in the follow up to that.

"I have upset Iain with that and I apologise to him and to everyone at Crystal Palace as I would not want to do that.

"It was a mistake made by me in a genuine manner."

Pardew is of course no stranger to speaking about contracted players - whilst still boss at Reading, he upset the then-West Ham manager Glenn Roeder by claiming he would have liked to sign Paolo Di Canio.