Crystal Palace spirit alone not enough, says Roy Hodgson
Friday 3 November 2017 15:34, UK
Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson has praised the team's desire but says fighting spirit alone won't save them from relegation.
Palace are three points adrift at the foot of the Premier League ahead of the weekend fixtures with just one win and a draw from their first ten games.
They take on third-placed Tottenham on Sunday, with Spurs buoyed by their superb 3-1 win against Real Madrid in the Champions League on Wednesday evening.
Hodgson has taken heart from the performance against West Ham last Saturday, when Palace rallied from two goals down to draw 2-2 - Wilfried Zaha scoring deep into injury time.
And speaking ahead of the trip to Wembley, Hodgson said: "I've not seen any signs of a lack of fighting spirit even from the moment I was appointed, and I don't think from what I have seen from the training sessions that there is any lack of desire on the part of the players to give their absolute all to help the club get out of the situation it finds itself in.
"But unfortunately fighting spirit alone is not enough. You have got to play some good football along the way, you have got to defend well and you have got to attack well.
"They are the things that the players, in my opinion at least, are trying to do in their everyday training sessions.
"In the last three games I think there has been an improvement from the first three games that I had with the team and we are hoping to keep that standard going."
Hodgson did not mind singling out Zaha for his contribution against West Ham.
"The players that get singled out are at the business end of the field, the goalkeepers at one end and the centre-forwards at the other. The goal scorers are always going to be the ones that people talk about and I'm more than happy to do that.
"Since Wilf Zaha has been in back in training and back playing for us he has added something to our team. He has given us another dimension, another possibility.
"I think we threaten teams a lot more than perhaps we were doing in the first three games I had with the club and I thank him for that and we hope to keep that going."
Hodgson had some positive news on the injury front, with Mamadou Sakho and James McArthur both back in training and potentially available for the weekend.
