Crystal Palace’s Hodgson: our performance against Arsenal will boost confidence ahead of Manchester City trip

BY SAM SMITH

Roy Hodgson believes that his Crystal Palace side’s good performance at Arsenal will boost confidence ahead of a trip to Manchester City on Sunday.

The South Londoners earned a goalless draw in North London and were unlucky not to beat Mikel Arteta’s side.

Palace’s back four were excellent, limiting the likes of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette to very few clear changes.

Hodgson said: “I’d like to think it (the performance against Arsenal) will do a lot for us. Obviously we’ve got a massive game coming up now on Sunday – that’s going to be another very, very difficult ask for us to get ourselves back on track and give Man City some sort of game.

“But we know we’re capable of it, which is good, that’s good for confidence. And we also know that we do have some points in the bag, so it’s not like we go there frightened to death knowing that if we lose it we’re going to be in some sort of a relegation battle.

“It doesn’t sound much, a point, but in this league every point you get is a valuable one, especially if you find yourself in the neck of the woods that we do. But we’re not alone in that neck of the woods, either. There’s many teams around.”

Palace had the better of the opportunities at the Emirates Stadium. Christian Benteke drew an excellent save from Bernd Leno before James Tomkins hit the crossbar.

But Hodgson seemed to feel that a point each was fair.

“We had to work very hard for that point that we got,” he continued. “It took a lot of very disciplined defending, a lot of running and energy from the players to get us where we were.

“We did have some good chances, especially in the first half. Towards the end of the second half I thought, breaking out, a better final pass or a bit more composure, perhaps that move could have put us in to actually win the game.

“But I’m sure that had we won it, Arsenal would have felt hard done by because they had a lot of the ball in the second half, but I thought we kept them at bay particularly well.”