‘There are goals in the team’ – Roy Hodgson confident scoring will be shared around the Crystal Palace squad

BY SAM SMITH

Roy Hodgson has batted away concerns that his Crystal Palace team do not score enough goals.

The Eagles drew another blank in their 1-0 defeat against Burnley tonight – despite creating enough chances to win the game.

Wilfried Zaha is the only Palace player to score more than one Premier League goal this season. The forward was absent for the match at Turf Moor, self-isolating after testing positive for Covid-19 last week, and his clinical nature was sorely missed.

But Hodgson has pointed to the fact that the South Londoners have 12 goals in nine games – and is confident they will be shared around the team.

Hodgson said: “I’ve had two years listening to people tell me we don’t score enough goals or that we don’t have enough goalscorers.

“At the moment, in the position that we are in the table with 12 goals after nine games, I will push those questions aside.

“There are goals in the team. There are players who can score and will score. There are 29 games to go and the goals will come – and they will come from a range of sources.”

Belgian pair Michy Batshuayi and Christian Benteke were the guiltiest of missing key chances against the Clarets.

Batshuayi squandered a one-on-one and Benteke was thwarted by the excellent Nick Pope late on.

The Palace boss continued: “The quality of our play through the midfield and around the edge of the box was good enough in the second half. We presented enough chances to get a goal.

“The goalkeeper was in great form, they do well around their box – as everyone knows. They’re keen to block. With a bit more attention to the final pass, we would have created even stronger chances than we did, but certainly in the game there were at least four or five really gilt-edge chances to score.

“And if you do that against a team like Burnley, that means you’re playing okay but to get something out of the game you need to take those chances.”