Roy Hodgson
Your team really dug out a result tonight.
I don’t agree with that, unfortunately. Yes, we came back from 1-0, but I thought we had every bit as much possession as Everton had, that’s the way I saw it from the touchline. And I thought we had every bit as many goal chances and opportunities as they had, so I’m afraid that I can’t agree with your observation. However, I am pleased that after going a goal down we got back into the game. I’m grateful for our goalkeeper to make a few very good saves in the game. But strangely enough those chances came very haphazardly, they didn’t come because we were being cut apart by Everton, or they were finding their way through our defence easily, they came through relatively random situations. It often fell quite kindly and our keeper had to make good saves, but otherwise I thought we were every bit as good during the body of the game as Everton were.
Is the goal to push on and finish in the top 10, or is the first marker to get to 40 points?
Well I’m not so certain now you’re going to need 40 points to be brutally honest. It’s going to be very hard for both Fulham and Newcastle to get to 38 points, even. It’s going to be a tough ask and I wouldn’t like to be in their position looking to get to 38 points if I’m to be honest with you. But yes, it would be nice to get a few more, get over the 40 mark and say that we’ve achieved our major goal for the season which is to keep Crystal Palace in the Premier League. If we play as well as we’ve done this evening and look as dangerous going forward as we did this evening, I’m rather hoping that despite a tough programme we’ll be able to get more points on the board and as you rightly say, maybe get us into the top half of the table, that would be very nice. But the major goal, of course, has got to be salvation. That’s always going to be the major goal for a team like us.
Vicente Guaita was man of the match. That must give confidence to the defence when you know you have an inspired keeper on a night like tonight?
Yes, he was very good tonight. He didn’t get called into action that many times, strangely enough, but the times he did get called into action he was forced to make very good saves. We know that he can do that. We appreciate very much what he does for us and his talent. It’s nice that today he’s got the recognition we have always given him because we know how good he is.
There seemed to be an incident after the game, the referee spoke to Wilfried Zaha, Luka Milivojevic and Ben Godfrey. You were on the pitch and spoke to the refere, what happened there?
You should know me better than that. I’ve just enjoyed a wonderful football match and some very, very good play from both teams. I’m particularly pleased with the way Crystal Palace performed. A minor incident which I didn’t see and have got no real opinion of, I’m disappointed that such a lot of good football that we’ve seen tonight has been totally pushed to one side and I’m asked to discuss something which is, to me I must say, of absolutely no consequence.
You said ahead of the game that you were looking forward to Schlupp and Zaha’s real comeback from injury. Schlupp’s introduction looked a real game changer.
Yes, he was very good. I mean he wasn’t the only one of our attacking-minded players who was very good today. Wilf Zaha and Eberechi Eze were excellent in terms of the danger they created and the problems they caused the Everton team, and of course well-backed up by our central midfield players. I was really pleased with every aspect of our attacking play today and delighted of course that it’s meant that we leave here with a point – it’s of course never easy to get points here at Goodison. But today I thought we fully deserved what we got and I thought it was a performance which gives me great encouragement for the final eight games. If we can play as well as that against a team of Everton’s quality then we can do it against the next eight as well – albeit we have some tough games in those eight fixtures.
There were the quotes from Michy Batshuayi during the week about Palace, can you comment on that and how he played generally?
Well he scored a goal, which is very important, and was very important for us so he’s got to be pleased with that and we certainly are pleased with it. But the fact is I’m afraid that when players go on international duty and they’re talking to Belgian journalists and they’ve just scored a goal for their national team against Belarus and then they’re asked: ‘How is it at Crystal Palace?’ It would be very surprising to me if the player didn’t make the sort of comments he made. For me it’s part and parcel of football and I guess you’ve been in football a long time, you must have seen plenty of quotes in that type of situation. But since he’s come back, Michy has been in good form, he’s been in good spirits. He’s contributed well in the training sessions which has given me the opportunity or the faith, if you like, to put him on tonight and see what he could do for us. Luckily he repaid that faith by scoring a goal. It’s good for me going forward to know that we still have Michy on board in that way and he still has goals in him.
