The best bits of yesterday's Palace press conference

Steve Parish: “Obviously, as people are aware, it's been quite a long torturous process for us to get here.

“We didn't always think we'd be in the position we are now in but we are here and very happy to be so.

“Martin and I have got two co-investors, Stephen Browett and Jeremy Hoskins, we've been very transparent with that to the fans, so everybody knows who's involved.

“Obviously, we've got good ambitions for the club, the future of the club, and the stadium and hopefully today you'll see with the unveiling of George and Dougie as his assistant, the start of that.

“We think that's a real positive statement to make to the fans about where we want to be and where we see this club going.”

George Burley: “What can I say, it's a privilege to be here.

“I think everyone in football, especially Crystal Palace fans, are very pleased at the new consortium coming in to save the club.

“I'm sure it was an anxious time, the last couple of months of the season.

“I remember watching the last game against Sheffield Wednesday, it was very close but I think the spirit came through from the players and the fans had great faith in Crystal Palace.

“I've been here as a player many times in the top league, and as a manager in the Championship, and it's always been enjoyable.

“It's always been a club I've respected, so I feel now is the time to rebuild.

“Being in administration for the last five or six months hasn't been easy, we've lost a few players, there's a few players out of contract, and we've got a low number of staff but I'm looking forward to the challenge, I'm excited about it.

“I think the nucleus of what we want to do is bringing young players through, bringing new players into the squad and trying to make it into a caring family club, a club that's going to have strong foundations.

“A club built for the future that will be strong and won't get into that position again.

“I think that's important for the fans. Even in the bad times, you see just before the club was saved how the fans care about the club, so that speaks volumes because I'm sure it couldn't have been easy.

“I'm pleased that Dougie accepted the role of assistant - I'm not just doing it because he's Scottish and I'm the only one that understands him!

“He's a big favourite at Palace, I remember him as a player, a very intelligent player.

“He's very enthusiastic about the coaching role and I think we'll work very well together so I'm excited, and glad to be back in club football and enjoying being out on the training pitch working with players.

“My job, and Dougie's job, is to improve players whether they're 35 years old or 16 years old.

“It's great to be back in the Championship and hopefully can do what I did at Ipswich and take the club back to the Premier League.”

Q. Any qualms about taking over a club that was on the verge of going out of existence?

GB: “None at all. I don't know the club well, but I've been here many times and you can see the support base.

“I think the academy and the young players are well respected and it's a tremendous catchment area.

“That's important to me as I was brought up on getting into the first team when I was 17 and I've been very fortunate of late, with Gareth Bale and Theo Walcott at Southampton, both 17, Tom Huddlestone at Derby, 17 and Darren Ambrose who's here now. Darren Bent too. All players I introduced at 17.

“So that's what I really enjoy and I feel it's what I'm good at, bringing young talent through and in the Championship I've been in six play-offs and I've had promotions.

“I took Ipswich to fifth in the Premiership so I'm really looking forward to it.

“It was a proud moment when I was given the job to manage my country, and it was a great experience but I've missed the day to day involvement and the coaching of players.

“So I didn't have any second thoughts in coming back into the Championship, coming back to London and looking forward to working at Palace.”

Q. How scarred were you by the Scotland job?

GB: “Not scarred at all, it was a great experience.

“There aren't many people in the world who are asked to manage their country and we only just missed out to Holland in the last game.

“We lost 1-0 and we had a capacity crowd at Hampden that cheered the whole team off.

“Of course, I wanted to qualify for the World Cup but it's not easy - Scotland hasn't been there for 12 years.

“It's a great education when you manage against Argentina and Holland and Croatia so I really enjoyed it, but I did miss the day to day involvement.”

Q. Do you have to bring young players through? What resources are you going to be given?

GB :“I don't have to, but I think this club is geared for that and I think clubs in the Championship have got to be realistic.

“If you start chasing that rainbow, it could cripple you and it's important you have a strong foundation.

“If you produce young players, keep them as long as you can, hopefully they can take you to the Premier League.

“And if they can't, or they want to move on, the club can re-invest that money in new players. That's the way to go forward.

“The consortium did magnificently to save the club. I'm sure there were times when they thought this isn't going to happen, but they never gave in.

“All credit to Dougie and Paul Hart for keeping the club in the Championship. They did a tremendous job, but now the re-building programme starts.

“Staff, players, fans, community, the academy and young players are the way forward for Crystal Palace.”

Q. What is realistic for Palace this season?

GB: “It's not going to be easy. I think we'll be looking to stabilise, we'll be looking to get into the top six if we can, but really we need to rebuild.

“As far as getting a strong squad together, we'll see who's going to be here and who wants to play for Crystal Palace, what youngsters can we bring through and how can we improve the club in general?

“So we're not setting any targets we can't make, but what we're saying is we're going to get stronger, and push on from a good foundation.”

Q. Is there money available to put into the squad?

SP: “There's money available. What we wanted to make sure we did when acquiring the club was make sure we could keep the value of the playing squad that we've got now and the salary bill that we had.

“We would have finished just outside the play-offs notwithstanding the 10-point deduction, which put a special kind of stress and pressure on you.

“So who's to say that squad, with the budget we had, wouldn't have finished in the play-offs?

“George doesn't have to sell anybody and any money raised from player sales can be re-invested.

“We've got a decent wage bill and players have left that means there's a hole in that wage bill that we can fill.

“Hopefully, if the fans come to terms with the fact the club might not have existed and get behind us and we get big season-ticket sales then that will go into the budget as well.

“We'll work with George to look at the best place to put that.

“We are fortunate to have a fantastic academy and you've seen some of the players that have come through.

“We've had Victor Moses and Nathaniel Clyne and there's more of those types of players we've got great faith in as well.

“We'll make sure there's an equal balance of now and tomorrow.

“What we've said to George is that we're not prepared to risk the future of the club on one player, or a dream.

“We've seen that too many times at Palace with too many big-name signings that haven't worked for one reason or another and that's led to the issues the club have got into.

“We know there are clubs out there with more money than us, or are prepared to spend more money, but that's not a sustainable future and they'll be losing money.

“We believe building a balance sheet over a period of time is actually a stronger way of running a football club than big lumps of money being dropped in very quickly.

“George will have plenty of resources, and we'll work together to make sure we're competitive.”

Q. Was George's reputation of bringing young players through one of the reasons you chose him as manager?

SP : “I think it's a basket of things. He's got to six play-offs - every Championship club that George has managed has got into the play-offs, so that's a pretty good record.

“The difference between our academy and Chelsea and Arsenal's has got to be that kids get a chance to play.

“Why play in Chelsea's reserves then just get shipped out on loan somewhere?

“At Palace, if you're good enough, you'll play in the first team.

“It's up to George though, if they're not good enough, then we can't play them.

“It's first team performances that drive the crowds, that drives everything about a football club and that's what we've got to be geared around.”

Q. Have the last few weeks been hectic?

SP :“It's a fast learning curve, but we've got great people around.

“Phil Alexander, the chief executive, has been around the club for years. He's been fantastic.

“Dougie's been fantastic in the interim period down at the training ground.

“This club has a lot of honest, decent people and that makes it easier because you're getting the real story very quickly and you can make decisions.

“But there is a lot to do, we want to make all the niggly things better for fans.

“I've got a day job as well, so we rely on the professional management of the club.

Q. There have been rumours about redeveloping the Main Stand. Is that something you are looking into?

SP: “The club hasn't owned the ground since 1986 and we wouldn't have got involved if we didn't have that asset.

“The club has got one big asset – the land on which it sits.

“If you went to Selhurst Park 10-15 years ago and then went to Villa Park or Highbury, you wouldn't have had that much of a different experience. Now you go to these grounds and they're fantastic, with fantastic facilities.

“We're now in a world where people have other things to do other can come to football.

“They can go to Bluewater, watch a film at the cinema and have a lovely afternoon.

“They don't need to come here and have sub-standard surroundings.

“We want to find a way to do something.

“In a perfect world we would find a site to move away to and build something purpose built.

“If we can't do that then a new main stand is a basic requirement.

“If you haven't got extra revenue opportunities on the 24 days we host football matches because we haven't got the space or if we can't use the stadium for non-matchday revenue, then it's very difficult to drive the revenues that build a successful football club.

“We need to get the playing side right and as soon as we've got that we'll start having conversations with various stakeholders on the site, with Croydon Council and John Rouse, who's been fantastic, to do the things we need to do to take the club into it's next 100 years of existence.”

Q. Describe your time out of football, and did you have any other offers?

GB: “I did a lot of shopping with the wife, kept myself fit and ran the London Marathon which I'm still recovering from!

“Football's been my life since I went to Ipswich at 15 so it's been strange.

“I felt it had to be a job I was excited about, where I felt I could do something with the club.

“I had one or two offers but Crystal Palace's potential is enormous, with the catchment area, the fans, and the young players it's the right opportunity.”

Q. Did you get advice from any other managers before taking the job?

GB: “I was doing grass-roots coaching two weeks ago at the NEC and spoke to Iain Dowie and Peter Taylor. They spoke really highly of the club and that gave me great confidence to take the job if I was offered it.”

Q. You must want to keep hold of Darren Ambrose?

GB: “I brought up Darren as a kid and gave him his debut at 17.

“He maybe left Ipswich too early to go to Newcastle but he was absolutely fantastic last season.

“He's a player I want to keep and certainly we'll be trying to get him to extend his contract.

“I look forward to meeting Darren again, he's a great kid and I'm pleased that he did so well last season.”

Q. What message are you sending to the fans with George's appointment?

SP: “It's our first appointment and we tried to do our best for the club. He's got a great track record and we get on with him.

“Like a lot of businesses you know it won't always go well, you can have bad days at the office and that's where we'll be tested.

“A lot of fans wanted to go back to a Steve Coppell, ex-player type thing, but realistically, we lack experience.

“Me and Martin have never been around football to this extent so we very much wanted to choose someone with a track record.

“George likes to play football, crowds like to watch football being played, he's always brought the youngsters through.

“I can't think of a more positive appointment from a fan's point of view.”

Q. How pleasing was it for you to complete the takeover?

SP: “I'm not quite sure pleasing is the right word.

“Owning a football club is a daunting thing, you only have to look at the history of people who owned this football club, you can't get over-excited.

“They are tough businesses to run. Mark and certainly Simon did fantastic things for this football club. A lot of things have been said about Simon, but all Simon did was pour his money into this football club, chasing the dream for him and the fans.

“We need a more sustainable business model so it's more trepidation and concern than excitement.

“We're all fans though and we want to do the best for the club.

“You don't really own a football club, you just look after it for a a while.

“Football clubs are bigger than boards of directors and managers, it's about the fans. The fans made this deal happen, there's no question it was de-railed until the fans got involved.”

Q. How did you go about approaching Dougie for the assistant role?

GB: “Well, if you offer a Scotsman money he takes it!

“Dougie's well respected in the game, he had a tremendous career, and he wants to be part of the coaching set-up.

“He and Paul Hart did tremendously at the end of last season.

“I said to Dougie that I brought Tony Mowbray through for his first coaching job and Tony learned a lot from me to become a tremendous manager.

“I'm sure Dougie will one day be a manager himself but he's looking forward to working with someone with a bit of experience.

“The manager's always the one who gets sacked so he's quite happy with that!

“I'm sure he'll be a great help to me with his knowledge of the club and the area, which is second to none.

“We both want to get on the training ground, give the players a smile on their faces and give them the belief we can get into the Premier League.

“If it's not this year it will be the next.

“If we have a wee bit of luck in the transfer window and get some players signed up on longer deals, anything's possible.

“He's fitter than me, so he says, though I don't know what he'd be like in a marathon!”

Dougie Freedman: “I'm really looking forward to it. Looking forward to bouncing my ideas off someone with such a great track record and experience, and giving George my knowledge of the club.”

SP: “Adding to that, from our perspective there were a lot of things right about this football club, a lot of things that were put in place, and a lot of heritage.

“A lot of what Simon did was absolutely the right thing to do and Dougie is very much part of the heritage of this football club.

“I think it's important that football clubs retain their soul and not become transient things.

“People talk about loyalty in football and when we were in trouble last year, Dougie came running.

“He wanted to come and help and that's rare in football.

“We're a small club and we need that team spirit to beat the bigger guys. That's what makes us punch above our weight sometimes.”