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Crystal Palace were unable to repeat their sensational victory over Manchester City in December as they were beaten 3-1 by the champions at Selhurst Park on Saturday, although given the Eagles’ home form, this result was hardly much of a surprise.
Roy Hodgson’s side set up a tense finish after Luka Milivojevic pulled one back cleverly, although Gabriel Jesus put the game to bed with a late strike. The former England boss didn’t help his team out one bit, though, and has made a fool of himself once again with these post-match comments.
What did he say?
Well, speaking after the loss, the Premier League’s oldest manager had this to say:
“I thought we did better in the second half but bottom line is, you analyse the goals you conceded afterwards about various aspects of your own defensive play that could’ve been better but if they hadn’t had scored their goals that way, they would’ve scored them another way.
“All you can hope for, I think, is you can hope that the players stay in the game as much as they can, they don’t ever give up, they don’t throw their arms up in the air and say: ‘this is impossible, whatever we do they’re playing through us’. You hope by doing that, that you can get back into the game as we did from a very good free-kick and start to make them think: ‘this isn’t as easy as we thought, this isn’t all over’.
“But in doing so, what invariably happens is you stretch yourself, go to 4-4-2, you put a winger on, you play two guys up front and encourage your full-backs to push up and then they break on you and score a third goal and put the game to bed.”
Hapless Hodgson
Indeed, the Eagles looked likely to score an equaliser after their captain made it 2-1, with attacking substitutions made and their opponents finally put under some real pressure.
The Cityzens won the ball back though and scored, albeit with the linesman’s aid, on the counter to snuff out any astonishing Palace comeback. While a game against City is widely considered a bit of a free hit Palace fans will surely have been hoping for more from their side in the first half in particular, with City allowed to dominate.
Whenever Palace finally did win the ball back, they gave it away almost immediately, largely through faults of their own rather than City’s stellar pressing, and it took until the last 10 or 15 minutes for the hosts to finally give as good as they got.
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Had they put their visitors under half as much pressure as they did in the final stages during the rest of the game, then the result could have been different and at least Palace would have given a good account of themselves. Of course, it’s about finding a balance between ensuring defensive security and being a threat on the front foot, but Palace were unable to offer either.
Hodgson clearly knows the quality of the opposition but, having bested the champions at the Etihad Stadium last time the two sides met, the message should surely be that they can do it again, rather than to just ‘stay in the game as much as they can’.
Far too often have Palace rolled over for 80 minutes before finally giving it a go and Hodgson’s comments will surely leave a sour taste in the fans’ mouths.