“We can’t make sure he is ready, he is the only one that can make certain he is ready,” the Palace manager said at his pre-match press conference. “I would be very surprised if he was not champing at the bit to get the gloves on and get the jersey on.
“He has trained very enthusiastically for the last 10 days or so since he came back from injury, and it seems he will be more than ready – if anything he will be over ready. He won’t have that lovely tranquillity that a goalkeeper who has been playing every game and getting rave reviews gets.
“He will be nervous, but we will do everything to quell those nerves because we have great faith in him. He is a great goalkeeper, and we are very lucky that if we lose Vicente we have a man like Sam with his quality and experience in his place.
“Don’t forget, Sam Johnstone has been in the England squad as well, so we are not talking about a guy playing his first Premier League game. We are talking about a guy who might be a bit disappointed that he is not the No. 1 here.”
Palace will also be without Wilfried Zaha, who is out with a muscle strain – but Hodgson says he is confident in his players to step up.
“I’m very pleased with the shape of the team and the way the team played, so we would like if we possibly could to retain as much of that as had,” he said. “By bringing either Jordan [Ayew] or JP [Mateta] in, we hope we can keep that going.
“Thinking about players of Wilf’s calibre, players who are very important to their team and the way their team is playing, when players are missing they leave a gap and those gaps aren’t easy to fill.
“I know Wilf is very committed, and very disappointed to be missing these games. We need him not just because of his quality but because of his leadership qualities as well.”
Despite an excellent start to his second spell in charge of the side, Hodgson says Palace must approach every game with the same urgency and determination to secure three points.
“You can have a very good week of training and be very happy with people, but then the match begins and it doesn’t work out at all,” he explained. “We will find that happen a few times I’m certain, and that will test us.
“It will test the ability of the players to accept that we are in a very delicate situation. Winning one game hasn’t made it clear that we are no longer relegation candidates. We are.
“It was great to get that win. It was a vibrant win and we were delighted, but we mustn’t think we have cracked it. We’ve cracked nothing. We need a lot more points. The attitude going into this next game has to be exactly the same.
“[Leeds] are going to be really up for the game. They are going to be as motivated and as anxious to win the game as we are, so what are we going to produce on the field to make sure we end the game coming off it as winners and not them?
“That will very much be the case with all the games we play. I can’t see one game where that won’t be the case between now and the end of the season.”