Roy Hodgson: We showed some fight in the second-half during defeat at Chelsea

Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson came away disappointed with his team’s performance as they fell to a 2-1 defeat by Chelsea, but was encouraged by their fight in the second half, writes Matt Woosnam.

Palace were poor in the opening 45 minutes, with a deflected Willian strike and a Martin Kelly own goal seven minutes apart enough to sink them to defeat. It could have been more, but the Eagles’ goal led a charmed life. The second half saw the introduction of Wilfried Zaha and he energised the team, which had a significant impact. Alexander Sorloth saw a goal harshly ruled out as Jairo Riedewald was penalised for an alleged high boot, and whilst they rode their luck, they did not concede again; finding the net themselves on 89 minutes when Zaha played the ball to Patrick van Aanholt who nutmegged Thibaut Courtouis, and Hodgson was pleased with the reaction.

“We have had three defeats against top teams but on each occasion we haven’t discredited ourselves,” he said.

“In only one half of those six we have been below the level we believe we can reach, but the bottom line is that we conceded a late goal against Tottenham to take away a point and a 92nd minute goal against Manchester United to take away a point. Today we did our level best to come back on level terms, and perhaps if the referee hadn’t seen what he perceived to be a foul we might have come away from this with a point. “It’s a shame that we didn’t play the whole of the game as we did the second half.

“There was far too much difference both defensively and offensively and we paid the price coming into half-time two goals down against a team of Chelsea’s quality. Their power and pace on the counter attack was always going to be difficult.

“It was a much better second half; we pushed up better and played how we were hoping to play from the start. Wilf gave us a bit of a bonus and we started to ask questions and we could have drawn the game. Everyone tells me we should feel aggrieved [about the disallowed goal]. I only saw it pitchside, but i’m told there wasn’t too much wrong with it. Zaha returned from a five game absence through injury to provide much needed impetus in the second half, but Hodgson insists he was not capable of playing from the start.

“There are no regrets. The fact is being wise after the event, if we started him he would have broken down after 15 minutes – he has only had one training session – then you would miss him for the last eight games.

“We stood up the best we could. I would have preferred to have kept him on the bench longer but I was disappointed. We were not working hard enough, there was not enough threat and we didn’t pass ball well enough. It was too strong a temptation not to bring on a player of his quality on.

“It is clear to me and the players what we need to do. We must reproduce five of these last six halves and make certain we leave no stone unturned.”

Ruben Loftus-Cheek has also been absent for a prolonged period, but the Eagles boss revealed he expects the Chelsea loanee, along with Yohan Cabaye, Mamadou Sakho and Zaha to return to full training next week.

“We know he can be [an important player] in terms of his quality. When he got injured and returned to Chelsea he was major contender for a place in England’s World Cup squad. I see no reason why he cannot get back and reproduce that form. He has been passed fit from the injury and could have played today [if he was not ineligble to face his parent club].

“From next week on he will be back in training. Sakho, Yohan and Wilfried will hopefully be training from first day not just the last session before the match. If that happens the squad will look like it did before Christmas and give me options I’ve not had in the last three or four weeks.”