Crystal Palace striker Connor Wickham believes he will be returning to the Eagles at the end of the season, when his loan spell with Sheffield Wednesday finishes.
The Palace striker has joined the Owls on loan until the end of the season, with the 26-year-old looking for more first team football with the Championship side.
Wickham has been dogged by injury problems in recent seasons, with the former Ipswich Town and Sunderland striker finding his opportunities limited at Palace after returning from a serious knee injury.
He has played eight times for the Eagles this season, scoring one goal in the 1-1 draw with Norwich City in the Premier League on New Year's Day.
However, he has now joined Sheffield Wednesday for the third time in his career after two previous loan spells at Hillsborough, with the striker looking to try and get more game time.
Wickham is yet to play for the Owls, but he has already been asked about whether he could make the move permanent in the summer.
In response, Wickham told BBC Radio Sheffield: “It depends on the situation at the time and what’s on the table.
“I’ve still got a year left at Palace. I think the intention is to go back to Palace. The chairman (Steve Parish) has made that quite clear to me.
“So as far as I’m concerned from Crystal Palace’s side this is for me to get the fitness, the development and whatever happens after that is for the future to hold. We’ll see what happens."
Meanwhile, Palace boss Roy Hodgson has explained why he felt it was the right decision to give Wickham the opportunity to get more game time elsewhere.
"We have got Cenk Tosun, Christian Benteke coming back from injury and Jordan Ayew, so that is three centre forwards," said Hodgson.
"So if I had kept him [Wickham] back to keep up the numbers and be covered, if we really are unlucky and get two or three people going down, I might have given him another five or six months without the chance to play.
“The opportunity came up for him to go to a Championship club, a good Championship club, where I am hoping that he won’t just train with them every day, but he will get into the team and start to do well, and then hopefully, because he is still a Crystal Palace player, we might see the Connor Wickham that people may have seen four years ago.
“Unfortunately in the time I have been here, I haven’t seen that, because most of his time has been ruined by injury.
"The fact is in the last three transfer windows, that is 18 months, with all of his injury problems we have said he [Wickham] hasn’t been getting regular football and he needs to get that."
