Roy Hodgson
A first professional goal for Tyrick Mitchell.
Yeah. It was a fitting end I thought to a very good performance from him all the way through the game. It was an excellent cross for Christian Benteke’s equaliser. I thought he worked hard to defend under some quite difficult circumstances at times in the first half. In the second half he continued the work, combined extremely well with Wilf and Eze down that left side. We created chances at regular intervals during the second half and he was often a part of them. And then of course at the end he pops up and scores, so a great day for him. Very much appreciated by his teammates, who gave him a rousing round of applause when he came in after talking to the media while we were discussing the game. It’s a wonderful moment for a player whose future I think is very bright. I’m hoping to see him go on to have a really good Premier League career.
He seems to be quite a popular lad at the club – lots of celebrations after that goal.
He is popular, and for the right reasons – why players should be popular. He’s popular because he works hard, he trains hard, he always does his job, he listens to things he’s being told, what’s being asked of him by the coaching staff and his teammates. Never shirks any aspect of the game. Getting forward to support, running back after losing the ball, or getting out to block crosses and defend. He does all of those things, which is of course what we want from players. That’s what we want our left-back to do. I think if you do it as well as he does, then you’re going to be a popular figure. He doesn’t buy popularity in any other way than by showing the players around him – his teammates – trust me because with me in your team I can help you win.
You came from behind not once but twice, that must give you and the coaching staff real satisfaction.
It gives us enormous satisfaction. That was, for me, a throwback to so many games I’ve seen here over the last four years. So many games where we may have fallen behind and not quite found our true form during a period of the game. And then suddenly a switch is switched on and suddenly the team is completely electrified. I thought our second half performance in many ways was that type of what I would call a typical Crystal Palace performance over the last four years where, OK, we could have been excused because the first half wasn’t that good, of accepting that we did get back in it but now we’ve gone behind again. We didn’t accept that. We made certain from the offset in the second half that we were going to get back into this game. In fact we got to 2-2 then didn’t stop, we went for the winner. A really satisfying moment for the players, I think they should be very, very proud of the way they’ve worked to get this victory against a team who to be fair have had a very, very good season and have some very good players.
Can only imagine what the noise would have been like after that goal if Selhurst Park had been packed. 6,500 back on Wednesday, but they should by buoyant after that win.
I hope so. We all know how important the fans are, and it’s been talked about many times here at Palace because our fans have been unbelievably supportive through the years. The Tottenham game when I thought they were quite important to us in making certain we got a point out of that game, there was only 2,000. There will be three times more than that, so if 2,000 can make as much noise as they did, maybe 6,000 I won’t even realise that it’s not a full stadium.
Just a bit about the squad – obviously Jack Butland made his Premier League debut, you had two keepers on the bench and James Tomkins came on – can you talk us through that?
Yeah, the only reason we had an extra goalkeeper on the bench is Wayne Hennessey had enormous misfortune to pick up that very bad injury he did playing for Wales. He’s been outside of being in a place of contention for a place in the team for a long time. But for the last six weeks or so he’s really worked hard to get back into the form we know he has, but also having to accept that unfortunately in his absence, Guaita has continued to do very well and Butland is really breathing down Guaita’s neck. So it was nice today to be able to say to him: ‘Look, we’ve only got 19 players available and there’s 20 spots – would you be interested in taking part?’ And he jumped at the opportunity because I’ve got to say one thing about Wayne Hennessey – he’s a fantastic club man. Whether he’s playing or being a substitute. Because to be fair, when Guaita came in, he had to accept for a period of time that he was No.2 and Guaita’s No.1. But he’s always been unbelievably supportive, always right behind the team. That explains him, if you like. We’ve had family issues with both Luka Milivojevic and Patrick van Aanholt, so we couldn’t use those today, they obviously were not with us. For McCarthy who’s not played for a long time, it was good to see him back. And for Tomkins in particular. He’s a player I think we have missed because he’s such a good quality player. We’ve been lucky that Kouyate – who didn’t come to the club as a centre-back, he came as a central midfielder – has stepped in and done so brilliantly for us at centre-back, but that’s been forced on us by the injuries to people like James Tomkins and Mamadou Sakho. So it’s delightful to see him back. There’s no doubt when you watch James play, you have to accept that we have missed his quality.
Just on Butland – how did you see his 90 minutes today?
Good, very good. He made one wonder save, I think it was from an offside situation but he made a wonder save. But I thought he was very good. But I must also say that I’ve also made this clear – it’s not a question of rotating the goalkeepers at this moment in time. Vicente has been the No.1 goalkeeper, he deserves to be brought back into the team. But it’s really nice to know that the faith we all have in Jack -because we believe he is certainly good enough to play for any Premier League team, he’s that good a goalkeeper – it was nice to see that justified today. Great for him because he’s had to wait a long time for this opportunity. So very nice that he can go home tonight with a win bonus.
Have you ever had two keepers on the bench before in one of your teams?
It’s a very good question, I suppose the answer is I don’t know, off hand. It’s not something which I would have taken…which would have had a major effect if it were. Had we done it, it would have been because of the situation where we have the extra space, why not put another goalkeeper on? I do remember going into the first UEFA Cup final I had with Inter, we had so few players we were taking players from the Primavera – the Under-23 team – I didn’t even recognise when they came to join us. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of those games around that time we had three goalkeepers. Would it have been no Under-23s and Under-18s on the bench because of the bubble and the Under-23s’ play-off game on Monday? Yeah, absolutely right with your thinking. We could have filled the bench with one more outfield player by calling an Under-23 player but they’ve got this big game tomorrow night, or an Under-18 player. But the really good Under-18s at the moment, they’re going to be involved in the game tomorrow night, or on the bench. So I didn’t want to disturb Shaun Derry’s chances of working with the team. Because to be quite frank, whoever we’d have brought up into the group he would not have been one of the first two or three names in our head to put onto the field of play.
