Centre-back Martin Kelly was taken off in stoppage time of the first half after feeling a tweak to his hamstring. Hodgson said: “It’s very annoying because we’ve worked hard to avoid muscle injuries. That came about because of a foul – he felt a twinge in his hamstring because of the foul. He was moving away from a player who was pulling him back and the movement he had to make to get forward to the ball made him tweak his hamstring.”
In terms of prognosis, he said: “We won’t know until tomorrow how damaging that hamstring pull is. They can be very damaging as we all know, or we might be lucky because he came off straight away and as it wasn’t a violent movement - it might be that he is not going to be out for as long as he might have been.”
The manager also updated the media on goalkeeper Julian Speroni, who was not included in today's squad to face Newcastle United. He said: “He was injured in training yesterday just before the end, when he twisted his knee in a five a side game. He – and we - didn’t think it was going to be that problematic straight after training, but overnight it’s swollen and it’s feeling stiff so tomorrow he will have a scan to see how bad that damage is.”
Palace’s next match sees Hodgson’s men travel to Merseyside, where the Eagles face Sam Allardyce’s Everton on Saturday afternoon at 3pm.
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