City are keeping their fingers crossed that Saturday's home game with Crystal Palace will beat the wintry weather.

A pitch inspection is planned tomorrow at the Bradford & Bingley Stadium before the visitors leave London at lunchtime.

The Palace game is the only one at home in January and a postponement would play further havoc with the club's latest cash-flow problems.

Local weather forecasts suggest the temperature before the weekend will reach a maximum of four degrees centigrade.

Tuesday night's reserve game with Bolton was called off because of a frozen pitch and covers have remained on the surface since then. But parts of it are still solid, particularly the area beneath the Sunwin Stand which is blocked out from the sun.

Club secretary Jon Pollard said: "It's going to be touch and go. The pitch is still hard underneath the covers and there is ice and frost in places.

"I would think they will take off some of the covers to have a closer look but it will be a close-run thing."

Boss Nicky Law said: "We'll try to move Heaven and earth to get the game on. But you need a good couple of days to thaw it out properly."

City lost their last league game to the weather. The New Year's Day trip to Grimsby was called off because of a waterlogged pitch.

It has been rearranged for Saturday, January 25 providing Grimsby are out of the FA Cup.

The Birmingham home game last season was postponed two hours before kick-off after a deluge of rain. During City's final year in the Premiership, the clash with Liverpool fell victim to a frozen pitch.

City will return to the High Court in Leeds before the end of the month to officially come out of administration. The order will be formally lifted although the club will remain under the supervision of administrators Kroll Buchler Phillips.

But the club's annual meeting will not take place until late March at the earliest.

The last financial year was extended to the end of August to cover the full period of administration during the summer.

Managing director Shaun Harvey said: "Under company laws an AGM has to be held within 15 months of the previous one which was this time last year. We expect it to be arranged for a date either late in March or early April.

"There is nothing devious about it. We just felt it made sense to take in the administration so we will be reporting on a 14-month financial year. It's anticipated that the end of our year will revert back to June 30 after that."