Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson had no complaints after their 3-1 defeat to Manchester City.

Raheem Sterling scored twice for City's 3-1 win.

Asked about the qualities of this Manchester City side, Hodgson discussed the difficulty his Palace side faced: "That is not only our task but it is the task of quite a lot of other teams in the league when they come up against Man City. It is what you prepare for, it is not difficult to see where their strengths lie. But it is so difficult getting that balance right, making sure you don't get totally torn apart tactically, and at the same time putting them under enough pressure to concern them in some way.

"I thought we did better in the second half but bottom line is, you analyse the goals you conceded afterwards about various aspects of your own defensive play that could've been better but if they hadn't had scored their goals that way, they would've scored them another way.

"All you can hope for, I think, is you can hope that the players stay in the game as much as they can, they don't ever give up, they don't throw their arms up in the air and say: 'this is impossible, whatever we do they're playing through us'. You hope by doing that, that you can get back into the game as we did from a very good free-kick and start to make them think: 'this isn't as easy as we thought, this isn't all over'.

"But in doing so, what invariably happens is you stretch yourself, go to 4-4-2, you put a winger on, you play two guys up front and encourage your full-backs to push up and then they break on you and score a third goal and put the game to bed."