“Most importantly of all, he brings a situation where we have two outstandingly good goalkeepers,” Hodgson said in his pre-Wolves press conference. “The competition between them is going to be very important and of course it's good for us because whichever goalkeeper gets the No. 1 shirt we know we’ve got a top, top-class goalkeeper.
“More important than that, we know a lot things can happen during the season and if you’ve got two goalkeepers, each of whom are of the same level of performance, if anything happens to one of them you are still as well provided for between the sticks as you were before.
“Sam Johnstone will be in goal against Wolves – Dean's only just arrived at the club, and needs to get to know the club and get to know his teammates before he can really provide the competition we're expecting him to do.
“We signed him because he is very good. We were able to persuade him to come here and now there is a situation where, like several other teams, we are looking at two goalkeepers, either of whom can play in the first-team and both of whom will be accepting of the fact that they do both want to play and they'll have to accept the competition that provides."
Fellow addition Matheus França has been out with an injury, and Hodgson says he and Michael Olise are being managed by the physios.
“Matheus França is with our medical department and we are keeping an eye on his situation,” Hodgson explained. “He is due to have another scan fairly soon to see if there is any improvement in the original problem we had to deal with.
“But I don’t have an update in terms of the time he will come back and joins us. We have to accept that he is one we have to wait on, as we still have to wait on Michael Olise. Michael had a very serious injury and the injury we've discovered with Matheus needs to be looked after.”
Hodgson says he has not only been boosted by new signings, but also at the club’s achievement in keeping the very best players in south London.
“The good thing for us in this transfer window is we've kept the team I was hoping to work with again,” the manager said. “At one stage, with Michael Olise, that looked like it might not be possible.
“For me, the best thing about this transfer window is that we still have the team I came here to work with.
“We are still working and improving and the club is always open to improving, and Steve Parish and Doug Freedman are still working at this moment to see if we can bring in players to improve the team.”