Crystal Palace manager Sam Allardyce has been spotted planning his latest great Premier League escape act - alone in a Nando's.

Collecting his thoughts on Friday ahead of the Eagles' away trip to Stoke on Saturday, Allardyce was spied in solitude at the Greenwich branch of the chicken-centric restaurant chain.

Whether this is 'where the magic happens' - like that café in Edinburgh where JK Rowling reputedly came up with her well-known Harry Potter book series - remains unclear; Big Sam may just have been eating his dinner.

All the same, there's nothing like the fun of a wing-roulette-for-one to dispel the pall of relegation fears.

The Palace boss was snapped as he surveyed the menu; if Sam Allardyce has himself a Nando's 'black card' - and surely, surely he does - it could well have been a big, complicated order.