Saints boss Alan Pardew might be at the front of the queue if Crystal Palace begin a player firesale today.

Pardew, who bought imposing centre-half Jose Fonte from Sel-hurst Park in January, has also previosuly tracked Palace’s highly-rated central midfield ace Neil Danns.

And right-back Danny Butterfield might also be someone Pardew would fancy bringing in on the cheap as he currently has no senior player in that position on his books.

Palace need the consortium CPFC 2010, who are attempting to buy the stricken club, to complete the deal by 3pm today. If they don’t, Agilo, the hedge fund which put Palace into administration in Jan-uary, will begin selling off players and dissolving the club.

The consortium have even called on Prime Minister David Cameron to intervene.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, who are selling the ground on behalf of Bank of Scotland, have included a clause in the deal for the bank to receive further money if the ground was sold on in the future.

A statement from CPFC 2010 read: “We have now reached agreement with Agilo regarding their debt against the club and did have what we thought was an agreement with Bank of Scotland, who are the major creditor of Selhurst Park Ltd.

“But we have been sent a contract that does not reflect this and it’s unworkable.

“Bank of Scotland is government owned and, as such, we urge the new Prime Minister to intervene or see this club with its 100-year history consigned to the scrapheap.”

Brendan Guilfoyle, the administrator running the club, on Friday made 29 staff redundant and does not have the money to pay the wages for May.

Guilfoyle has agreed a deal to sell Darren Ambrose to QPR and will have to offload further players, effectively ending any hopes of a takeover, unless the issue with the bank can be resolved.

He said: “I’m millions of pounds behind so I’ve got to start selling players, and if I do that the indications are that 2010 will withdraw.”