The Eagles stretched their unbeaten run to seven games – their best ever in the Premier League – after goals from Christian Benteke, Wilfried Zaha and Bakary Sako saw off the Foxes, and Hodgson was thankful that a fine display on the road yielded the full three points.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, he talked about a number of issues from the game, including:
Best away performance of season?: “I suppose it is because we won, but I thought we played very well at Tottenham when we lost 1-0, and I was pretty pleased when we lost at Newcastle. Of course, when you’re coming home after a defeat you don’t feel any sense of satisfaction, but today we do.
“It’s three clean sheets in a row away from home which is good, and even more importantly we’ve cured the hoodoo of not scoring away from home. That has always been a bit surprising for me as in each of those away games as well as the ones at Brighton and West Brom, the chances were there and we were very close to scoring goals. Today, we did score them.”
Benteke off the mark: “That’s great for him. He was very strong and did the right things after the penalty miss and held his hands up, and everyone in the club appreciated that. We know that he is a quality player and the goal he scored is the sort of one he’s going to score, and had it not been for a wondersave by Kasper Schmeichel, he would have scored two today because he got in the positions well, and when he does that he’s a good header of the ball.”
Boost of confidence for Benteke: “His record at Aston Villa was one every two games, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he matched that here in the remaining games of the season – that’s what we’re hoping for. Perhaps it’s a confidence thing and all strikers go through periods where the ball doesn’t go in the net for them, and he’s had a lot of injuries this year. Now he’s playing 90 minutes and starting every game, and if we get the type of service that Andros provided, he’ll score goals.”
Suspensions: “We’ve been a little bit unlucky as we only got one yellow card today and it fell to the guy who was already on four [Benteke], and we got two against Watford when one came to a guy on four [Milivojevic]. I don’t quite know what Benteke does to get yellow cards because he doesn’t seem to commit any fouls to me!”