As featured on NewsNow: Football news

Crystal Palace boss Hodgson excited with Benteke, Zaha performance

Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson is delighted with the developing partnership between Christian Benteke and Wilfried Zaha.

Both players hit doubles in the 5-1 rout of West Brom on Sunday.

Hodgson said, "I'm fortunate I see it [attacking talent] from Wilf all the time. I see it in training sessions and I've certainly seen it over the last three-and-a-half years I've been working with him.

"We know he has that ability and know when we get the ball to his feet in the final third he's very, very difficult to stop. He can twist and turn both ways, he's got excellent feet, excellent ball control.

"But of course, what he's added to his game this year or certainly worked hard to add to his game is his goalscoring - he's always looking to get shots away. That first goal - I see that quite often in training - that's not a fluke. And the second one was determination to get to the ball after [Eberechi] Eze's excellent run, that also was a goalscorer doing that. If Wilf can keep that up, it bodes very well for us.

"He's a bit disappointed I took him off with 10 minutes to go because he wanted a hat-trick and that's a good sign too. I'd have been less happy if he'd said to me: 'No, I was quite content to come off, I don't need the third.'"

On Benteke, he continued: "I would like to think he's going to get a lot of plaudits for his performance. It wasn't just the goals, it was a lot of other aspects to his play which were good.

"He's waited a long time, he's been on the bench and waited quite a long time this season without actually getting in and showing what he can do and that's even going back into the lockdown period. He's been patient but he's never stopped working, to be fair to him.

"Today, he showed the type of player he was when Palace bought him from Liverpool and, once again, he showed everybody out there: 'I haven't lost anything, I'm still Christian Benteke. You can still rely on me.'

"He's now got to be able to keep that going because the thing about players' performances is they need to be consistent. You can sit here talking very happily about two players who've had good games but I need them to have good games in the next three coming up. That's the real test: that consistency and that reliability."

Video of the day:

About the author

Paul Vegas

×

Subscribe and go ad-free

For only $10 a year

  1. Go Ad-Free
  2. Faster site experience
  3. Support great writing
  4. Subscribe now
Launch Offer: 2 months free
×

Subscribe and go ad-free

For only $10 a year

Subscribe now
Launch Offer: 2 months free