Saturday 21 April 2018 18:28, UK
Roy Hodgson launched a staunch defence of Wilfried Zaha after the Crystal Palace forward was booked for simulation inside the penalty area in the goalless draw at Watford.
Zaha saw a penalty appeal turned down in the first half after tangling with Christian Kabasele - an incident which led Watford midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure to gesture that the 25-year-old had dived.
The second penalty shout, which led to Zaha's booking, saw him go down following a challenge from Adrian Mariappa, with replays suggesting there was a touch from the Watford defender.
Asked if Zaha's reputation preceded him, Hodgson replied: "Well, we can't do anything about that, unfortunately. I know Zaha, having worked with him for basically the whole of this season.
"I know that every time he gets the ball in the penalty area, he's trying to beat opponents - he's trying to score a goal more than anything else.
"I think he is being unfairly treated. But the fact is, reputations are given to you from people outside of your control. Other managers sometimes come in with opinions and that's been picked up by the mass media - then it gets blown up.
"I can assure people, if they've got any faith in my judgement and ability to see football relatively calmly, he never looks to dive in the penalty area - never - because he wants to score goals, there's no doubt about that.
"He will get unbalanced. I thought in the first half the referee made the right decision when he almost got through but was unbalanced and went down. He didn't go for the penalty. He was just unbalanced. The referee dealt with that very well.
"The second one, when people see it they will have their opinions, but they will have to forgive me for thinking that it was a penalty."
The point for Palace lifted them into 15th in the Premier League table, six points clear of 18th-placed Southampton, who have a game in hand.
Palace were very much second best in the first half at Watford, who hit the bar through Stefano Okaka, though after the break Hodgson's men struck the woodwork twice from Luka Milivojevic's free-kick and James Tomkins' header.
"I thought it was a valuable point," Hodgson added. "We had a couple of decent results lately, and it was important to keep that going.
"In the first half Watford played well. They caused us a lot of problems so what pleased me most was the second half where we readdressed the balance and play the kind of football I would have liked to have seen for the whole of the 90 minutes. Full credit to Watford for not allowing that.
"We were a bit unlucky that they seemed to get away with a few things as well. We sorted ourselves out and we have to be happy with that."
