Bury manager NEIL WARNOCK has his say on thisd week in football.

THE start of a hectic few days saw Bury on television at Norwich where there was tremendous commitment all round.

Our great team spirit could have been shattered by the controversial 93rd minute penalty. Fortunately for us Dean Kiely made a super save, and we came away with the point we fully deserved.

I said at the press conference that the referee would be embarrassed when he saw the penalty incident. Would you believe it on Monday morning I received a telephone call from the referee saying he had seen the penalty and realised what a meal the lad Forbes had made of it.

I suppose you have to take your hat off to referees like that, who admit to their mistakes, but I can assure everyone it wouldn't have made me feel any better if we had lost the game to that decision after putting so much effort into the game.

I wanted to play three or four players on Tuesday who hadn't had a game but as you saw in the paper when I told the players concerned they wanted to play against Crystal Palace, so apart from Steve Redmond who had hurt his knee, I decided to let them all play. I am sure the 2,700 brave hearts who went appreciated their efforts resulting in a 3-0 first leg victory against a side littered with one million pound players.

I know Terry Venables was extremely disappointed with the result but I don't kid myself to know that next week's second leg will not be a formality, whatever anybody thinks. Knowing us I am sure it will be one of those games when we could make a mistake early on and let a Palace side full of ability into it. Then it would be backs to the wall for the whole of the match so we have to be on our guard. We must prepare correctly for that game and I will be doing my utmost to make sure we progress to the next round.

I am not a big fan of cups as you usually get suspensions and injuries and such was the case when we lost Andy Woodward after 20 minutes with a hamstring. He looks like being out for a couple of weeks.

But on the plus side it gave young Danny Swailes an opportunity. He came on and did a super job and I am sure he will remember his 70 minutes playing against the likes of Jansen and Shipperley. I gave Danny a big pat on the back as he came off and hopefully he will continue to learn.

He has done well this season and we are going to need him in the squad when you look at the numbers we have available. With Foster injured and Redmond out of the game I had to play Nick Daws out of position but Patterson came in and once again we all rolled up our sleeves.

With the injury situation worsening and Woodward missing tomorrow's game anyhow with suspension, I went into the transfer market. I had been working for a couple of weeks on bringing in Chris Billy, who was with me at Huddersfield and Plymouth and managed to get Notts County to allow us to take over his contract.

They have been looking to release a couple of players to cut back on their wage bill and it's been great to get Chris without any fee being involved. It is my fifth free transfer this season and I hope he does as well as the other four.

Having Chris at the club does take a lot of pressure off the squad because he can play left-back, right back, left wing, right wing, midfield and also behind the front two, so it does give me a few more options, especially if we get injuries. It looks like he will be coming straight into the side against Tranmere, a game where we will be looking to continue our home run.

Next week is the longest of the season. After playing our second leg at Palace on the Wednesday we find ourselves travelling to Wolves before returning to Palace in the league the following Wednesday. It promises to be a long week for supporters, players and staff alike. Let's just hope we can come up with some good results. I think you know by now it won't be for the lack of trying.

I went to watch Tranmere last Friday night against Huddersfield and they could have won the game. Whilst they are struggling at the wrong end of the table and have had a few injuries, they had enough opportunities to have won the match and if we are not ready for it tomorrow then it will be a big surprise. And how many big surprises do we get when we go into a game as favourites. We have to take nothing for granted. It's so important to maintain this early season form up as long as possible and I am sure that the fans coming down tomorrow will once again get behind us.

I keep getting lots of letters and I much appreciate it. I will be answering most of them as soon as possible, it's just that secretary Jill Neville has been away for a bit of convalescing and a bit of a holiday in Kuala Lumpur watching daughter Tracey play netball in the Commonwealth Games, but she will soon be back and we will get round to answering them.

It is interesting to note in your letters how you all vary on opinions on certain players etc., it shows what a wonderful game this is really and how there is no way I will be able to please everybody with my selections.

I watched the Manchester United and Barcelona game on Wednesday night and was highly impressed with the technical ability of the Spanish team. It shone through when they moved the ball out just when it looked like they were going to be overrun. There were a couple of controversial penalties but I do still feel English teams are just a little away from the top European sides. I also know that our blood and thunder game is sometimes too much for the continentals and hope one of the clubs will win the European Cup this season.

Congratulations to Bruce Grobbelaar, who has been picked to manage his country Zimbabwe, albeit in a caretaker capacity. We wish him all the best.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.