“Marc Guéhi and Joachim Andersen are excellent,” he said during his pre-Tottenham press conference. “Much of our work is on our defending.
“If you wanted to really ask what has impressed me most about Michael Olise, Ebere Eze, Jordan Ayew, Wilfried Zaha, Jeff Schlupp, it has been their defensive work. How well they defend from the front, how well they screen things off, how they make it difficult for the midfield to play through.
“The back-line is just a very good back-four: four good defender. Marc is a very good player, Andersen is a very good player. They are good defenders, but good on the ball too which is very, very useful because it helps starts attacks, switch the play and develop the composure you need to help start attacks.
“They are very useful to the football club – they would be useful to any football club. It’s good players that win games, and we are winning games because we have got good players.”
Palace next task is to stop Tottenham and Harry Kane, who drew level with Wayne Rooney as the Premier League’s second-highest all-time goalscorer against Liverpool.
“It’s pretty much every game we play, we are doing preparation and you look at the opposition and think: ‘He’s dangerous’,” Hodgson admitted. “How would we stop Declan Rice in our midfield in the last game.
“Before that it was how we were going to stop Sinesterra and [Patrick] Bamford, who have been outstanding. How will we stop Harvey Barnes being on the left-wing and causing us problems.
“Kane is one of the very best players in world football and an outstanding goalscorer. The need for you to defend well as a group becomes even higher.
“Do it with good corporate defending. Restrict service to him, be aware that when he’s in and around the penalty area you have to be close to him and stop the space he has, and not let him get the shots away, because when he gets shots away they go in the goal.
“I have a lot of respect for Harry Kane. I gave him his debut for England when I was manager. Over the years I have since watched him get better and better, and watched him cause havoc with every defence he meets.”