Read on for the manager's pre-match press conference thoughts on the Toffees, and their manager Sean Dyche; his opinion on the FA Cup and the role it plays in the modern game; and his hopes for 2024...
Hodgson on Sean Dyche, Everton, Cup dreams and hopes for 2024...
Crystal Palace kick off 2024 with a home Emirates FA Cup third-round tie against Everton at Selhurst Park on Thursday, 4th January (20:00 GMT).
On the win over Brentford…
“When you've had a long spell where you're not winning, it's important to get a win.
“It can be a little bit simplistic to judge a period of a team’s play purely on wins and losses because, as we can see, I thought Brentford looked quite good, but you they've had a series of losses, Newcastle United have had a series of losses… In this league, it can happen.
“A lot depends really on how you think the team's playing and what sort of results you've had in the matches you've had to confront. And we've had one or two encouraging results, albeit they've been draws rather than wins.
“But that win, of course, the longer it goes, becomes more elusive and when it eventually comes it's a big relief for everybody, not least of all the club and the fans and the players themselves. And it does give you that little bit more belief that some of these games where we've been bemoaning the fact that we've only drawn, it could have been so much better.
“You've now got the points to show that your performance merited something and I thought our performance against Brentford did merit something.”
On Everton manager Sean Dyche…
“I think he's done an excellent job, there's no question of that… and not least of all in this most recent period when he has had to face the body blow, really, of being told that you're doing okay in the league, but we're going to take 10 points from you.
“I think he and the team have reacted quite brilliantly to that. He's just a very good manager. He knows the job, he knows what needs to be done and he has the ability to engender those results with the players he works with, and to get the players believing in what needs to be done in his team to win matches.
“He’s done that at Burnley for very many years and now he's doing it at Everton, so I like him. I have enormous respect for him. I think he's an outstanding manager, but I'm only really saying everything which anyone else in this league who's worked either with him or played against him would say.”
On the threat Everton pose…
“They’ll be organised, they'll be very disciplined, they'll be hard-working. They know exactly what their jobs are on the field. They have a very clear philosophy that they'll know exactly what they think they need to do to stop us playing and to cause us problems when they've got the ball.
“I'm really describing something which a good manager and coach should be trying to produce in his team. And I'm talking about a good manager and coach, who’s got good players, so it's a very, very tough game.
“If you're going into the third round of the FA Cup, you wouldn't exactly pick Everton as your first opponent, but that's what we got coming out of the hat, and so that's what we'll deal with. We know they'll make it hard for us, but it'll be our job to make it hard for them.”
On Wayne Rooney’s departure from Birmingham City…
“I know him well. I worked with him for four years. He's got an outstanding football brain. He was a magnificent footballer. He's an icon of English football. One always hopes that when an icon of English football gets a chance to step up back in English football in the Championship, he's going to get a chance to really show what he can do.
“I can only agree with him: I think the amount of time he was given to really show his ability and his qualities was a short one. It’s the world we live in at the moment and I know Wayne understands and accepts that like we all do, but I'm sad that it happened and I know that he will bounce back.
“I’ve read or heard that he's going to take a little break from the game. I think that's an intelligent thing to do, because there's no doubt that Wayne Rooney will always be on people's lips and in people's minds when it comes to future jobs because he really does understand football.
“He's proved that and as a player I always thought he was very thoughtful and very astute tactically.
“It’s perhaps more a question of the climate that people work in these days. I think sometimes the bigger name players might be given a chance at a top club, or a club in an elevated position – and I'm thinking in particular Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, even more than Wayne, got that chance.
“But unfortunately way the climate is these days that the judgement on them will come very, very quickly and will be quite severe. They’ll be welcomed into the club because of their name and they'll be expected, because they are Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard, that suddenly they’ll come in and the team they’re taking over, which hasn’t been doing brilliantly, is suddenly going to fly. I think that's an unrealistic demand…
“That's where the dream, or the myth which is quite often proliferated, is that a manager has some sort of magic wand, and he will wave that wand and the team was doing badly will now do well because he's there. Sometimes it works… but it’s by no means a certainty.
“I wouldn’t, at the moment, want to cast aspersions on any of those three in terms of their ability to be good managers. I might even say, if I was to be philosophical that these experiences might even help them along the way, because somewhere along the way you're going to suffer some real blows in this game as a manager, perhaps more than you often suffer as a player… if they survive them they'll come out even stronger… I'm convinced that they have the qualities both as coaches, managers, and leaders to succeed.”
On the importance of the FA Cup to Palace…
“I've got to say that there have been times in my career here where I've been more concerned about the ‘staying in the league’ factor, not just because we have a fairly healthy margin.
“More to the point, I think we have a good team and I think this team is going to be more than good enough to keep us in the league, so I don't have to worry quite so much about that balancing act as maybe I have done at certain times in the past.
“It would be nice to have a Cup run. It would be nice to do well. We're certainly going to have a go at it and I expect, especially given the way things have panned out this year, with the way the mid-season break has gone, that we'll be able to play this game, give everything we need to give in this game, and still recover in time for the next one.”
On the role of the competition in the modern game…
“If you talk about the tradition of the FA Cup, of course I do believe in that. I do uphold that. I do think it is an extremely good competition and I do think that all teams, really, would like to have a good FA Cup. Certainly, and we are no different to those other teams.
“The top teams in particular carry 25 players and on top of that they've probably got 30 or 14 academy players who are just about to go out and be bought for £40million to be a star in some other team.
“They've got all of those options and I can understand that they see that [rotating in the FA Cup] as not being a particular weakening, and a way in making certain that they are giving people a game that otherwise they might not be able to give them if they just try to keep to the XI that have been playing. I understand those things.
“I think that the teams now that go out with so-called weakened teams, aren’t weakened teams as such. The higher up the league you go, where their squads are bigger and much stronger, even less so.
“But of course for teams a little bit lower down, or teams maybe facing a lot of injuries, they do run the risk, if they decide to leave a lot of the players who are regarded as the regular players out, it might not go quite so well for them. So that's where the balancing act comes in.”
On hopes of winning it this year…
“It would be lovely. I mean everything you can do in that respect for fans, they'd like to say that their club has won a trophy, so of course that would be a great thing to be able to offer them.
“We can only do our best. We can only do what we can do. We can only play with the players that we have available and put our best foot forward in the games. If you're talking about the dream and hope, of course that would be a big dream.
“But first we've got to get past a pretty difficult hurdle in the shape of Everton, who've been playing exceptionally well and in particular been getting very good results away from home.”
On the turn of the year…
“I think it was quite important to finish the calendar year for us as we did, because that result was necessary against a team who were fighting in the same sort of area of the league as we are, so we are happy about that.
“But everyone here is very realistic and I think everyone here, all the young players who’ll understand, like the old ones, the players and staff, that every match is different. Every match has got its own story and every match starts from zero and you don't take any credit from the last game with you – but luckily you don't necessarily take any negativity from the last game with you.
“Confidence, of course, can be effective and good results give confidence. The bad results take away confidence, but that's all part and parcel of a football player’s, and a manager and coach's, life.
“We have to learn to live with that and we have to be careful that in the good moments, the confidence doesn't make us get carried away in some way and forget what is important. And by the same token, we mustn’t allow the bad results to suddenly start us doubting all the good things that we know we are capable of doing.”