Roy Hodgson reveals: I’ve seen Wilfried Zaha regularly produce stunning goal against West Brom in training

BY SAM SMITH

Roy Hodgson has revealed that he regularly sees training ground replicas of Wilfried Zaha’s stunning first goal against West Brom – and hailed the ‘goalscorer’ nature of the 28-year-old’s second finish in the 5-1 win.

The Crystal Palace forward cut inside to wonderfully whip the ball beyond Baggies goalkeeper Sam Johnstone to make the score 2-1 in the second half. He then latched on to a loose ball to prod home another soon after.

Zaha was returning to the Palace team after missing their last two games following a period of self-isolation after testing positive for Covod-19, and produced an excellent performance.

He also provided the assist for Darnell Furlong’s own goal. Christian Benteke’s brace ensured the Eagles departed the Hawthorns with their highest-ever goal haul in a top-flight fixture.

“What he’s worked on to add to his game is his goalscoring,” said Hodgson. “He’s always looking to get shots away. that first goal, I see that quite often in training. That’s not a fluke.

“The second one is his determination to get to the ball after Eze’s excellent run. That was a goalscorer doing that. If Wilf can keep that up, it bodes very, very well for us. He’s a bit disappointed that I took him off with 10 minutes to go because he wanted a hat-trick, and that’s a good sign too. I’d have been less happy if he had said to me: ‘No, I was quite content to come off. I don’t need the third goal.’”

The Ivory Coast international was also effective defensively – making a particularly notable tackle to stop a West Brom counter-attack in the second half.

But Hodgson was not surprised to see his best attacking asset contributing to prevent the hosts scoring a second goal.

The Palace boss said: “It’s always been there. With a player like Jordan Ayew, every minute of every game [he’s pressing the opposition]. With Wilf, there will be moments when he either doesn’t recognise the situation, or doesn’t feel himself able to do it. But we know he can.

“It’s not the first time I’ve seen him do it, so I wasn’t at all surprised. I was delighted to see it. I was even more delighted to see him slow down, calm down and get his breath back when the ball is in and around the penalty area, because the problem with centre-forwards making those sorts of runs and working that hard, often they dangle a foot in the penalty area in the last minute and you concede a penalty from it.”