Roy Hodgson on defeat to Liverpool
Roy Hodgson says Crystal Palace’s 2-1 defeat to Liverpool was a tough result to take.
The Eagles led the Reds through Jean-Philippe Mateta’s second-half penalty and appeared to be in control of proceedings at Selhurst Park, but Jordan Ayew’s dismissal for two disputed yellow cards with 15 minutes remaining paved the way for a late Liverpool comeback.
Hodgson said: “We’ve had a lot of hard ones to take – this is just another one along the way.
“I’m gutted for the players, because I’m gutted about the way the game panned out. I think having to play the game with 10 men for the last 15 or 20 minutes was unbelievably harsh on us. I don’t believe it was worthy of the way we played.
“To play with ten men for the last 15-plus minutes, in a game up to that point we’d dealt with well, was a really, really harsh outcome and certainly not worthy of what the team produced up to that point.
“It’s saddening to watch games like that, where a team does so well as the boys did, and worked so hard against all the odds, and have to go along having lost two goals to one.”
The manager also clarified the nature of injuries to Odsonne Edouard, Jefferson Lerma and Sam Johnstone, all of whom were substituted during Saturday’s match.
He said: “Edouard we don’t know – it’s a knee injury. [There was] a calf injury to Johnstone, and a hamstring injury to Lerma.”
On an improved display from his players’ last outing, the manager added: “I’ve never had any doubt about the players.
"We’re going through a bad spell and it looks like the bad spell will continue – and we weren’t helped today with the continuation of that bad spell – but I’ve never had any worries about the team with regards to the rest of the season.
“We’re going to have to survive this bad spell and get players fit again.
“I can praise them for their performance today and say they were so unlucky… I can blame lots of things, but the bottom line is a game where I thought after 75 minutes we were looking likely to win 1-0, we lose 2-1.”