Crystal Palace’s landmark USA tour culminates in a showpiece friendly against the UEFA Europa League winners, and reigning champions, at Detroit’s Comerica Park on Sunday night (kick-off 19:00 EDT local time/Mon 00:00 BST local time).
Tickets for the fixture are still available, while the match will also be shown across the world on Palace TV+.
Ahead of the match, Hodgson explained: “It’ll be a tough game – our job has got to be to make it tough for Sevilla too.
“I’m still, at this point, hoping to see some sort of progression of our fitness and readiness to play in two weeks’ time, so that is still the real goal: 12th August [against Sheffield United, our first 23/24 Premier League match].
“We picked up an injury [to Will Hughes] against Millonarios and I don’t want that here, and I’m sure Sevilla don’t either. The competitive nature of the game is important, but I’m pretty certain I speak for both teams if I say they’ll be happy if they come off having had a good game, a good workout and no injuries.
“I’d be unhappy if I don’t see some of the principles of play we work on: the tactical side of the game when we’re defending and when we’re attacking. I’m expecting to see those principles in place.
“We might not be one hundred percent sharp yet. We might be missing a yard or two in our execution of those principles, but I want to see those principles in play and the type of play we’re working on, because we’re not doing that work for training purposes – we’re doing it for game purposes.”
