Crystal Palace 4 v 1 Northampton Town

FA Cup Third Round

For match pictures, visit Palace Pictures.

EAGLES assistant manager Neil McDonald was full of praise for his team after they emphatically secured a fourth round FA Cup clash with Championship colleagues Preston North End.

He said: "It was a fantastic win and the results over the past month have been exactly what we've been asking the players to do and they've done it.

"To get five wins on the bounce is excellent for our confidence which will take into the league match against Hull City next week.

"Northampton are doing really well in League Two and I went to watch them in the last round against Stevenage and saw what they could do, so we gave them due respect."

He said: "They showed they play really good football and they hit us with a very good goal on the counter attack.

"But I felt we were in control. We were disappointed to concede and they came back into it but we rode it out, came back strongly and scored some good goals."

He added: "Away from this match the headlines are about bids for Andrew Johnson in the transfer window.

"We all know he's a fantastic player and other clubs want him. But the chairman and manager say he's not going anywhere.

"He's back scoring goals again and hopefully this will put him in the frame for England."

Birmingham City are believed to have offered £3.5m plus two unnamed players in a deal worth £6.5m.

However Palace chairman Simon Jordan denied there had been any contact calling it "a sad attempt to make Birmingham look ambitious".

As well as the Midlands side, Tottenham, Everton, West Brom and West Ham have all shown interest in the 24-year-old who signed a five-year contract at Selhurst Park in August despite Palace's relegation last season.

Back in the FA Cup the Eagles victory over the Cobblers started with a Michael Hughes free-kick in the third minute.

The visitors responded quickly through Josh Low eight minutes later but Jobi McAnuff restored the lead before half-time.

The Cobblers responded well after the break with Andy Kirk going close to an equaliser.

However penalties by Johnson and Dougie Freedman on 52 and 87 minutes respectively put the Eagles into the hat for the next round.

McDonald said: "Next week we return to league action and continue our push for automatic promotion.

"We have to believe we can catch the top two and we need to keep winning to keep the pressure on.

"We're scoring goals and we're trying to work on keeping clean sheets because we always know we're capable of hitting the target at the other end."

MATCH FACTS: CRYSTAL PALACE: Kiraly; Boyce; Ward; Hudson; Borrowdale; McAnuff (Black, 66); Hughes (Riihilahti, 72); Watson; Andrews; Johnson (Berry, 83); Freedman.

SUBS NOT USED: Speroni; Wilson.

ATT: 10,391.