Crystal Palace ‘undone’ by early second half goals in 4-1 defeat against Tottenham Hotspur, says Roy Hodgson

BY SAM SMITH AND ANDREW McSTEEN

Roy Hodgson singled out early second-half goals by Gareth Bale and Harry Kane as being crucial to Crystal Palace’s 4-1 defeat against Tottenham Hotspur.

The Eagles were level at half-time thanks to Christian Benteke cancelling out Bale’s tap-in. However, the north Londoners took control of the game and were 3-1 ahead seven minutes into the second half.

The Welshman scored his second before an excellent finish by Kane effectively killed the game off. The latter then nodded into an empty net to add gloss to the scoreline.

Asked what his side could have done better, Hodgson said: “Apart from the obvious point of not conceding four goals, I don’t know. I mean, the first goal was one of those mistakes which happen in football but we did well to get back into the game by scoring the goal just before half-time.

“I thought we were undone by two exceptionally good goals at the start of the second half. We’re playing a team of great quality and when they’ve got a three-goals-to-one advantage over you, it’s going to be very, very hard to claw that back – it was very hard enough to claw the one goal back.

“What we could have done better? I thought there were times, strangely enough, in the second half when I thought we passed the ball better than perhaps we had done at times in the first half.

“But as I say, we were fighting that deficit of the goals they scored early in the second half to give themselves a very good lead.”

Tottenham’s front three of Bale, Kane and Son Heung-min were excellent. Kane assisted Bale’s goals while Son teed up the England captain for the fourth.

But Hodgson denied suggestions that Palace surrendered to the quality of the opposition.

He continued: “You can never hold your hands up, we’re in the same league. When we played them at Selhurst Park, it was 1-1 and we were very good value for that 1-1. We know what quality they had, we knew what quality Manchester United had when we played them on Wednesday night.

“You’ve got to find a way of doing what you do and your players giving what they can give to make sure the quality doesn’t shine through quite as clear as it did on occasions tonight.

“There are moments, unfortunately, when you play teams that have got players of such quality that when they are in the form that Bale and Kane were in tonight, when chances come their way and they take them with such aplomb, it’s going to be hard for you sometimes to get back into the game.”