Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson says Wilfried Zaha's injury absence for defeat to Southampton won't be long-term.

Zaha was forced to watch the game from the stands after unfortunately tweaking a muscle in the final moments of the last training session of the week on Friday, and despite initially hoping that he could play a part against the Saints, it wasn't to be.

Hodgson said: “He was injured yesterday in the very last minutes of the training session. He was assessed during the afternoon when the session was over and he came back in earlier this morning to see the medical staff and see if the injury wasn't that serious and maybe he could play, but he couldn't and it was sufficient to keep him out of the game."

The loss to the Saints meant that Palace once again failed to win a league game without Zaha in their team, a run that stretches back to September 2016.

Hodgson continued: “I am aware of it, but I don't quite know what I can do about it until such time that we play a game without Wilf and win, and until that happens then people will be quite entitled to bring that record up and beat the rest of the team over the head with it.

“Again he didn't play today and again we didn't win, so it's a fact that we have to learn to live with, and continue to make certain to put that situation behind us because there will be games where Wilf Zaha doesn't play, and I would like to believe that the team that we have is good enough to win games without him."