Crystal Palace boss left struggling for positives as performances don’t yield the points they merit

Roy Hodgson found it hard to leave Wembley on Sunday night with too many positives as Crystal Palace headed into the international break still firmly planted to the foot of the Premier League table.

The Eagles are six points adrift of safety after 11 matches with a goal from Tottenham’s Heung-Min Son inflicting a ninth defeat of the campaign on the South Londoners.

Hodgson told www.eagles.cpfc.co.uk: “You can take positives from anything I suppose, but the bottom line is it is another match gone by and another week gone by with no points.

“Although we should be taking some sort of heart from the fact we can play Newcastle and Tottenham away and come out of it with some credit – without people recognising there is a huge gulf in class – but it’s been the opponent who has got the goal and we haven’t.

“So it is hard for me to take positives. I believe if you don’t get the points when you play well enough to deserve points, there are going to be periods where you deserve nothing because you are playing badly. At the moment we are not playing badly and we should have at least two more points – if not more – from the last four games.”

Palace have massive home fixtures against fellow strugglers Stoke City and Everton back-to-back when domestic action resumes.

But ex-England boss Hodgson said: “It doesn’t interest me if they are in the bottom half. Sunday’s game should have been a walk in the park for Tottenham after beating Real Madrid. But they’ve gone away probably thinking they were quite lucky to take all three points.”