GOALKEEPER Lewis Price admitted it was an "easy decision" to leave Crystal Palace to sign for Crawley Town and is keen to extend his stay between the Reds stick beyond the end of his current loan deal.
Price's loan in Sussex runs out just before Christmas and while the 30-year-old keeper has fitted straight in at Crawley, heralding the "fantastic" team spirit, he admits his future depends on the fight for the number one shirt at Selhurst Park.
"I don't know if I've a future at Palace and the discussions haven't really been here nor there," Price, whose Eagles' contract runs out at the end of the season, said.
"I want to play football, Jules [Speroni] is the one with the shirt but I think Wayne [Hennessey] needs to go and play football as well now. I honestly don't know what's going to happen there.
"The other side of it for me is that if Palace didn't want to renew my contract and an option came up then I would seriously consider it because I'm getting to the age now where I want to play more games.
"I'm at Crawley until the Port Vale game if they wanted to extend it, it would definitely be something I'd be interested in.
"I've only been here a week but it's a great set of lads and fantastic spirit, which is a big thing when you come into a football club and you're the new face.
"To have had so many new players in the summer and then four months into the season, Crawley have a gelled team and a great spirit, that's fantastic. It makes you want to stay, if the option was ever there."
Before Saturday, the custodian had not played since keeping a clean sheet in Mansfield Town's win over Bristol Rovers in May but it did not show.
"It sounds a long time," Price admitted. "It's been a frustrating time but it was nice to get out and play a game of football again.
"If I'm honest I did feel a little bit rusty but so long as I didn't look it. It's tough because nothing matches playing competitive games but when I'm not playing I try to train a lot harder than if I was playing regularly. But also I try to imagine as if I was training for a game that weekend even though I know I'm not."
And given the keeper went from sitting in the stands at Selhurst Park to pulling on a Crawley Town shirt with just five days' notice, it wasn't a bad approach to take.
"I didn't know about the loan until last Monday," he said. "You just never know so if you haven't been training properly and doing things right you aren't going to be prepared and the person who would lose out in that situation would be me.
"I train like I'm playing. It helps that I kind of enjoy it; it's not a bad job, let's be honest."
