‘I would have been disappointed’ – Crystal Palace boss explains Eberechi Eze’s substitution in Everton FA Cup defeat

Roy Hodgson understood the frustration of the Crystal Palace fans following Eberechi Eze’s substitution in their 1-0 FA Cup third-round replay defeat at Everton on Wednesday evening.

The chants of: ‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ were audible from the away end when the Greenwich-born playmaker was taken off.

Eze was replaced by Matheus Franca, with Hodgson making five substitutions during the second half.

Andre Gomes’ 42nd-minute free-kick knocked the Eagles out of the competition,

The Eagles head to Arsenal on Saturday in the Premier League for the early kick off.

“Absolutely – we had to think very carefully about it,” admitted Hodgson of Eze’s withdrawal.

“I appreciate for the fans it’s a long way to come and we appreciate their support. I would have been disappointed to see Eze go off as he’s one of our best players.

“But I also would be extremely disappointed as a fan if he’d have played another 30 or 35 minutes and got injured in the process, or put himself in a situation where he can’t go out on the field against Arsenal – that would have been extra disappointing.

“Even without him on the field, I thought we did enough to cause Everton problems and create goal chances – I would say in the last 20 minutes of the game, we had three or four exceptional goal chances. 

“But once again we can only blame ourselves we didn’t take them.

“We’ve got a situation where our team has been fairly stable. A lot of players here who haven’t had a chance to show what they can do. We keep wanting to see what Mathues Franca, Naouirou Ahamada and David Ozoh can do.

“The chances are with the team we’ve got at the moment, their chances in the Premier League might still be few and far between. 

“It was good at least to see these players and to know that our judgement that we can trust them and if we need them to go on the field of play and do a good job for us is the right judgement. 

“They’ve gone on tonight against Everton at home, and in those 30 minutes, I wouldn’t have said we were suddenly much worse than we had been in as a team in the previous 60 minutes.”