Check out our round-up of the manager’s comments below – or, for the manager's pre-match team news, including an update on Jesurun Rak-Sakyi, click here.
Hodgson on transfer window plans, Arsenal, Palace prospects and targets...
Roy Hodgson discussed a wide range of topics at his pre-match press conference ahead of Crystal Palace's trip to face Arsenal at Emirates Stadium on Saturday, 20th January (12:30 GMT kick-off) – their first Premier League fixture of 2024.
On the January transfer window…
“I think for a long time, all through this window, certainly, but even in the summer when I came back, we were discussing certain areas of the field where we thought it would be good if we could get some strengthening to our squad.
“The loss of [Cheick] Doucouré, if anything, has exacerbated that situation because he's doing such an important job for us there in the centre of the midfield, so there's no doubt that the central midfield position is something we do need to look at and strengthen because now Doucouré won't be playing probably for the rest of this season.
“And then, of course, there are one or two other positions as well. We've always liked and thought it would be good if we could do something, but it's difficult. I mean, the transfer window at the best of times is very difficult.
“The January one, as everyone knows, is probably the hardest one of all, so I can only really back Steve Parish, the other investors, and Doug Freedman in the work they're doing and hope that come the end of the transfer window on the 1st of February, there might be one or two nice little surprises for me in terms of having a stronger squad to go through the rest of the season.”
On the challenge of facing Arsenal…
“Well, they provide a massive challenge. I mean, you're not a title contender unless you're an extremely good team with extremely good players.
“I've never taken a team to Arsenal – from Blackburn, over through West Brom, through Fulham and through Palace – I've never taken a team to Arsenal thinking… this is an easy one for us. It's always been up against it really, the underdog, which we still are in this match as well.
“But I thought there were a lot of aspects to our play on Wednesday night which were very satisfying. I thought we carried out our gameplan pretty well and on another occasion, I think we'd have even got a result from that game.
“But that's past. We will have to wave goodbye to the Cup run and really concentrate now on getting some points in the league – and that starts tomorrow.
“I do think we take a little bit of positivity from the Wednesday evening game into that game tomorrow with us.”
On conceding late goals this season…
“Those statistics don't surprise me because I hear them quite often. But I don't know quite how I should put them into some sort of perspective.
“If it was a fact that I thought the team was running out of steam and that we weren't as fit in the last 15 minutes as we'd been, that would really concern me, but I know that's not the case because I have all the data for that.
“So those goals we've conceded there, the 11 goals you mentioned, they're not coming as a result of something which one could easily put right, making certain we were a bit fitter going onto the field.
“Obviously, I'd have to see those 11 goals in which games and how the goals came about, but I've got to say that goals come at all times in games.
“And I think these are statistics, quite frankly, that often interest you more than they interest us working because we just have a game that's just been played so firmly in our mind and we're aware of how the goals were scored and why they were scored and why they shouldn't have been scored, and whether that's happening the first minute of the game or the 91st.
“We have conceded some unfortunate late ones, there's no doubt about that. But I don't know that it's something that concerns me more in terms of the time that the goals were scored than the fact that we've conceded 11 goals.
“Unfortunately we're in the bottom part of the table, not the top part, so we do tend to concede a few more goals than the teams at the top of the table.”
On Matheus França and David Ozoh…
“They’re young, aren't they? I mean they're young, they have ambitions, a lot of aspirations as well, and especially if you've come from Brazil like França, you've come here with dreams and thoughts of taking the Premier League by storm.
“It's not that easy, unfortunately, for players coming in when they're young and of course he came in with an injury into the bargain which took six or seven weeks for us to sort out. Ozoh has come in from our own academy.
“I think these players have to come to terms with the fact that it's not going to be easy to break into a Premier League side. We have some good players and especially when we get everybody back from the injury and from the AFCON tournament, we have quite a strong, experienced and steady side.
“But it was good that they got at least that 30 minutes the other night and it enabled me, of course, also to spare one or two players.
“In particular we decided before the game that [Ebere] Eze wouldn't play more than about 60 minutes. He's only just back from injury himself, and then we decided with the two wing-backs, who’d done an awful lot of work and with a game coming in two days' time, we'd take them off, and we were able to make a couple more changes.
“But frankly, it didn't actually affect our performance as much as I would have thought. I thought the lads that came on did reasonably well and in fact we had our best chances in the last 15 minutes of the game. We created three really clear-cut chances, contrived to miss them, but we didn't suddenly fall away in terms of our standard of play.
“But I suppose I can even see something positive in that because as many as six or seven players who maybe will start the game tomorrow didn't play the last 30 minutes of the game against Everton.”
On the impact of injuries this season…
“Of course, when I came back it was fresh after a very good finish to last season where we really had played well, but of course I was working on the basis that that team would be there in its entirety…. so we were definitely targeting a middle of the table, even maybe slightly bigger, but unfortunately the way things have gone it's become a bit harder for us.
“But if we can maybe get a couple of those players to help strengthen our squad that we would really like to have, and when people like Michael [Olise] and Eberechi really start playing together, which to be frank they haven't done very often because one was out for six months and the other one's been out two spells of three months and one-and-a-half months…
“When, and if, we can keep that group together – we'll have to accept that Cheick Doucouré, who's an important player, we won't have him, we'll have to accept that – but if we can keep that group together, I think we will start climbing the table, that’s for sure.
“But there's a lot of work to do on the training field and with the players because at the end of the day, it's so easy to say the things I'm saying ,but it's all about what you do every Saturday or Sunday for 90, 95 minutes on the field of play. That’s where the proof of the pudding will be.
“I believe that we've got players who will help us climb the table and then we'll see how high we can get.”
On the Crystal Palace supporters…
“The fans have been with the club a long time, they've seen the trials and the tribulations, and I'm certain they dream one day that there will be no more trials and tribulations, but they're used to helping the team get through these periods of time.
“I think we're going to give them a little bit more cheer in the second half of the season, if as I've said we get players back and we start playing in the way we know we can play, so we are very dependent upon their help, there's no question of that, both home and away, and I do think that, in our case in particular, the epithet of ‘the fans are our 12th man’ is very, very relevant in our case.
“I know they'll stick with us and I know they'll be cheering the team on and pushing us forward, but it's up to us to give them something to cheer about. You can't expect them to, out of the blue, produce performances on the field – that's what we've got to produce, and then they'll get behind us.”
On Chris Richards’ role as a defensive midfielder…
“He’s done exceptionally well. It’s not easy for a centre-back, who is a centre-back – that is his position where he's made his name and become an international player – but I think he's done well to step into that breach and do that job for us.
“I'm really very pleased with him, but there's no doubt that he is and will be, probably, a centre-back, so if we're going to try and convert him into that position it's going to take a lot more time than two or three games, but I’m very happy for him, very pleased with him, and it's good to see him getting regular football now which, to be fair, during the latter part of last season when I was here, he didn't get any games at all.”
On Ebere Eze…
“He’s a goalscorer. That's the good thing: we see him as one of our goalscorers. Michael's another, Jordan Ayew’s a third. We're going to be without Jordan, that's for sure, but it's going to be important to take chances.
“When you play away from home, we have to accept that they are a possession-based team. They’re a very good team. They keep the ball well, they probe and look to get into dangerous spaces, so the first thing we've got to do is to make sure that we don't fall into traps there and let them get through us easily.
“But then when we get the ball, we've got to do something with it, and ask them some questions and often you do that away from home on the counter-attack and if you're very lucky, things can happen to you as happened to us at Manchester City.
“We can survive a lot of pressure. We can't suggest that this is an even game and we are playing toe-to-toe with them, but by staying in the game and defending well and stopping them from scoring lots of goals, maybe if you're very lucky a couple of chances will come your way –can you take them?”