Hodgson addresses ‘incredible’ fans in pre-Liverpool press conference
Roy Hodgson says he understands the frustration of Crystal Palace’s ‘patient’ supporters during a difficult run, but that their ‘incredible’ support will help the team find positive results on the pitch.
The manager was speaking in his pre-Liverpool press conference, and addressed the fans directly when asked for his response to defeat at Bournemouth on Wednesday night:
“I'm a bit distressed by it really. I’m distressed by my comments and the choice of words which I bitterly regret. I mean, we've spoiled the fans in recent years? I don't think we have.
“I mean, I've seen the fans have been very patient. They've been fantastic behind us even during this bad spell. I can quite understand their frustration and their disappointment on Wednesday night because we all felt pretty bad about it. So I owe them an apology, that's for sure.
“In particular, they've been so good to me and the team during the almost five years I've been at the club now that I would be devastated if they seriously thought that I didn't appreciate the way they are and the way they do try to get behind the team all the time.
“Unfortunately, Wednesday night was a bad occasion. It was an occasion where everybody came to the game – players, staff, fans, management – everybody came to the game thinking: ‘Well, here's a chance for us to get some points on the board with all these difficult games coming up’. To have that hope, even expectation taken away from us by a combination of two things: I thought Bournemouth were good, that they deserved to win the game, they were the better team on the night; and, of course, the fact that we didn't play as well as we'd want to do and give our fans a real chance to get behind us and help us to a victory.
"But it's gone now, we've got to get over that. We are certainly going to need the fans tomorrow playing Liverpool because it's always a very tough game when you play Liverpool, either home or away.
“Certainly the fact that we are at home is one of our hopes that we'll be able to give Liverpool a very good game because the fans will get behind the team. I think at times like this when things aren't going well for a team, that's when you really do appreciate that if you've got a fan base like we have that do get behind the team, that do care, that do keep singing and chanting.
“Sometimes away from home, it's quite incredible. We hear our fans away from home, we're losing games and we hear them all the time. If you've got that going into a game like this one tomorrow, it's that bonus we need at the moment because we are fragile, because we are on a bad run of results.”