Roy Hodgson frustrated by Crystal Palace mistakes in heavy defeat against Chelsea

BY SAM SMITH

Roy Hodgson has bemoaned mistakes made by his Crystal Palace side in their heavy 4-0 defeat against Chelsea.

A scuffed Mamadou Sakho clearance led to Ben Chilwell’s opening goal. Kurt Zouma was then allowed to meet a Chilwell cross too easily to head home the Blues’ second.

Avoidable fouls by Tyrick Mitchell and Sakho twice handed Jorginho the opportunity to score a penalty late in the game – and the Italian duly obliged with identical spot-kicks.

Hodgson also felt Palace’s attack – which included Wilfried Zaha and Jordan Ayew – did not do enough to claw the game back in the Eagles’ favour after they had gone behind.

“All four were unfortunately very clear individual errors at the back. When that happens, it’s very hard to come back from it when you don’t have a clear attacking threat – and we didn’t have that today. We didn’t have it at any stage of the game,” Hodgson told BT Sport immediately after full-time.

“In the first half our defending was very good, on and off the ball. Our work was excellent but on the ball we didn’t show anything like the confidence and composure I would have liked the team to show.

“Against a team that pressurises well like Chelsea, it was always going to be a question of making certain they didn’t score one. Unfortunately, we have gifted them a goal after 50 minutes and, to compound thing, we have gifted them two penalties at the end.

“There were some poor performances out there. That’s for sure. There are some players who, one or two of them, who will be looking in the mirror and thinking, ‘I didn’t do anything near enough. I didn’t play anywhere near the level I would like to play at.’

“Unfortunately, these games do happen during the course of the season. We have to take it on the chin and make certain that it doesn’t have too big an effect on our confidence.

“We had three very good games [to start the season] and I thought the confidence was going to be quite high coming into this game. Unfortunately, the couple of mistakes we made, and the fact that we were 2-0 down very early in the second half means that we are now standing here looking back on quite a heavy defeat.”