The Eagles make a second trip to Manchester United and Old Trafford in the space of five days on Saturday, this time in the Premier League.
Having already explained that he will make a number of changes to the starting XI which fell to a midweek defeat in the Carabao Cup, Hodgson has targeted the October international break – which follows next weekend’s home game against Nottingham Forest – for several players’ returns.
The manager said: “We’ve been an exceptional victim of circumstance in terms of the injuries we picked up, which means this period in particularly has been hard.
“It won’t change before the end of the international break, but there’s some hope and some light at the end of the tunnel that when that international break comes to an end, then we might get at least a couple of these players back again and that will increase the squad, given that we don’t get any more injuries.
“He [Jefferson Lerma], [Naouirou] Ahamada, [Matheus] França, [Michael] Olise of course still, they’re all working. [james] Tomkins is getting much closer and will be back with us in training next week. The other four are on target, that’s all I can say.
“When their injuries occurred, I was told the likelihood would be that they would not be back until the end of the international break, and that’s where we are.”
One player who impressed many in midweek was midfielder Jaïro Riedewald, making his first start in a Palace shirt since August 2021 after overcoming his own injury troubles.
“He did well,” Hodgson confirmed. “It was a difficult game for him up there but I was more than satisfied with his performance. I thought he worked very, very hard. He did the type of things we were hoping he would be able to do.
“He was one of the people who came out of the game, as far as we’re concerned, positively, and it was good that that was the case, because it’s been such a long time since he got the chance to start a game.”
