For the manager's pre-match team news, including updates on Cheick Doucouré and Ebere Eze, please click here.
Every word from Hodgson on finding form, West Ham, Moyes & fixtures...
Roy Hodgson spoke passionately about a range of issues in his pre-match press conference, ahead of his team's visit to West Ham United on Sunday (14:00 GMT) – check out our round-up of the manager’s key comments below…
On whether he will seek midfield reinforcements in the January transfer window…
“That is a question for the club, of course, for [Chairman] Steve Parish and [Sporting Director] Dougie Freeman, first of all.
“But there's no doubt that they are on my side in that respect as well, in the sense that we do think we could do with some replacements and reinforcements in certain positions in the team.
"And, of course, now with the injury [to Cheick Doucouré] that's befallen us, that central midfield position becomes a priority for us.”
On one win in six for Palace, prior to Sunday’s game at London Stadium…
“It’s not very good, there’s no doubt about that. One win in six says it all. We started well, but one win in six…
“To be fair, two of those games, Newcastle and Tottenham, are tough games to get results from. But in the last four games we'd have liked to have got better results than we've done and it's a little reminder for us, really, that this is a very tough league.
“It’s so easy to go from feeling that things are going very well for you to suddenly realising, looking at the table and the points that we are gleaning from matches, it is not very good at all.
“But each game has its own story, that's the thing. It's not quite as simplistic as if you win, you are good and if you lose, you are bad. If I analyse each and every one of the games, I can find things to talk about which would mitigate the defeat or I might even find a way of suggesting that the team played well enough, but it just wasn't our day on that day.
“The bottom line is that to stay in this league, you need to start winning games and with a very difficult fixture list in front of us in December, we've got to hunker down and accept that this is going to be a tough battle for us and we've got to start thinking very carefully about what we can do in each game to get something from the game to keep us in a reasonable position in the league.”
On the pressure to find form in football…
“The pressure is always on. In football, whenever I come to a press conference, I realise how immediate everything is. But the bottom line is that what we've got to constantly think about is May and what position we’ll be in in the table in May.
“We can't start getting euphoric if suddenly, during a period of the season, we're suddenly climbing the table and then get absolutely depressed beyond all measure because you've had a period of games where it hasn't gone your way and you've started to slide down the table. That’s not going to help the team or the club at all.
“We know what we've got to do, we know what our goal is, we know what we think this team is capable of and we've got to keep our eye on the ball in that respect.
“At the moment, it's not a good moment for us. I’ve had a lot happier moments during the course of the season, but I can’t turn back the clock and change results that have gone, but furthermore, I can’t necessarily, by saying how important the next game is, make certain we’re going to win.
“We’ve got to make certain we go into the games we play – be it West Ham followed by Bournemouth, or Liverpool followed by Manchester City – ready to go out and try and compete, doing our best to come away with points, ideally, but if not points then some feeling that we’re still looking like a good team, making progress and will achieve our final goal come May.
“We've got to get out of this dodgy period as a team and all the players have got to do better and all the players have got to work harder. And we're going to have to be resilient enough to get through whatever's thrown us, because press conferences are fine. I can talk my way through most of the questions and say all the right things, but it doesn't matter.
“What matters is the team's performance on a Saturday and that's what's got to be right. And if it isn't right, then it's up to us, the coaching staff with the players, to put it right, and that’s something which is a constant process.
“That's why you can never be too happy when you're winning, because you know that in this league, the defeats are around the corner, and you've got to be able to deal with both aspects of the game.”
On coming up against West Ham manager David Moyes…
“I always enjoyed playing against David because we're friends and we’ve been friends for a long time, but I admire him as a coach and a manager.
“I admire the way he sets his teams up to play and the fact is that he's been in the Premier League a long time. He's won numerous Manager of the Year awards and there's a very simple reason why that has happened: he's good.
“The fact that he's good means that, whenever you play one of his teams, especially this one… they've had a lot of success in his time back at the club there, not least of all in Europe, but also in terms of recruitment. They brought in some quite important players and the club has backed the manager well in terms of the amount of money that the club has spent.
“So we know now that West Ham, who have always been a tough opponent, especially under David Moyes, are going to become an even tougher opponent during the course of the seasons to come.
“We are ready for that. But once again, these are all matters which are fine enough to talk about or I’m more than happy to talk about them, but it really doesn't alter anything. What alters something is how we are going to perform at two o'clock on Sunday when the referee blows the whistle to start the game, and whether David's done this or I've done that or whether we’re old or young, it's going to be the XI he puts on the field against the XI that we put on the field.”
On IFAB proposals to trial 'sin bins' in professional football…
“Sweden have quite often been a forerunner in trying things out. I don't know if you realise, or if I told you before, the multi-ball system started in Sweden in 1977. We take that for granted now. I don't know when it came into Europe, the rest of Europe, but it's been in Sweden since 1977.
“And I also remember a period of around about that time between ‘76 and ‘80 when the idea of sin bins came in as well. I don't know that it makes a vast amount of difference. For me, the longer I'm in the game, it seems to me, if you're not careful, you spend a lot of time talking about and moving away from the really vitally important factors in the game.
“I think that these changes in laws in recent years have made an incredible difference to the game, made it so much better, so much more entertaining, so much more of a spectacle, so we have made enormous strides in that respect.
“I don’t know if I should keep talking about it… but for me, at the moment, the major factor is the handball interpretation. I think that makes a vast difference to the game, and every week you guys are confronted with some enormous controversy somewhere around the world – there's an enormous injustice being committed in people's eyes.
“For me, I would much rather people concentrate on aspects like that, which are making a vast difference to the outcome of games. Sin bins, will they make a vast difference? I don't know. Will only allowing the captain talk to the referee? Well, that will see more yellow cards because unfortunately, what players will do, they'll react immediately and emotionally with decisions made and the referee will be there.
“It will be a spontaneous action, just like the spontaneous action, when a free-kick is awarded against you and the ball's dropped down at your feet, you kick it away.
“Now giving people yellow cards for those things, all it means is you get more suspensions. And fans of course would unfortunately get to see sometimes the players they'd like to see less often, because they've racked up the necessary 5 and 10 suspensions to get them taken out of the game.
“They're not the things that interest me. The things that interest me are things which make a vast difference to the way the game is played. And I've got to be frank that the sin bin idea, I don't have a strong opinion about it either way, other than it seems to me we are touching the edges and we are actually turning a blind eye to the elephant in room.”
On a busy festive fixture schedule ahead…
“Fortunately, it's not just on us.
"I think that to get into discussions on the scheduling is a very difficult thing to get into, because it's very well for us to say there are too many games in December, we'd like less, but we don't have any solutions as to how the people who do the scheduling are going to fix those games in, and it's also got to be fixed in with European fixtures and European football.
“I've got to say I'm much more sanguine about that. The schedule is what it is and as long as the schedule for us isn't so vastly different to all the teams we are playing against, I accept that and get on with it.
“But, of course, it doesn't help you that much if you are hit by a load of injuries during this period, which at the moment, touch wood, we aren't – important players injured, but not vast numbers – or if you've got a small squad of players.
“It definitely helps a little bit if you've got a very big squad of senior experienced players that can step into the breach when needed. But that's why of course the teams at the top end of the league tend to have the strongest squads, because they prepare for European football and they cover themselves a little bit better during these periods than some other teams are able to do.”