Crystal Palace boss Hodgson – we did not get what we deserved from Newcastle match
Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson was pleased with the display his team showed at Newcastle, despite suffering another defeat on their travels, writes Jay Rowe.
Mikel Merino’s header five minutes from time clinched the victory for the high-flying Magpies in a game that Palace controlled for the first 70 minutes, but they could not find a way onto the scoresheet for the sixth away game this season, and ultimately fell to defeat.
Despite another away day that yielded no points, Hodgson was buoyed by the at-times dominant display, saying post-match: “We’ve come here against a Newcastle team doing well, and we matched them and were the stronger team for large periods of the game.
“There’s no point in feeling hard-done-by; football is like that. You don’t always get what you deserve. I would have been more disappointed had the performance not as been as good as I would have anticipated it to be, so when you give a good performance you always hope that you get your reward but on this occasion we didn’t.”
With a huge week coming up with the opportunity to reach the EFL Cup quarter-finals and a crunch game against beleaguered West Ham United at Selhurst Park next Saturday, Hodgson is desperate to keep the morale gained from the stunning victory against Chelsea.
“The important thing for me is that the players, who are bitterly disappointed at the moment, don’t allow their confidence to drop. There were so many aspects of our play and periods in the game where we did more than enough to come away from St James’ Park with a win.
“You can’t stop believing – if you give good performances you will get good results. Last week we gave a good performance and got a win, and in my opinion we gave a good performance today and got a defeat.
“At 0-0, anything can happen and it happened to us at a corner kick – watching the replay we were unlucky that the header cannons into Merino off McArthur and whizzes past our goalkeeper, so that was a further piece of bad luck.”
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