Hodgson hopes Zaha avoided injury

Wilfried Zaha limped off as he was substituted late in Crystal Palace’s important 2-0 Premier League win at Huddersfield Town, but manager Roy Hodgson is optimistic the star forward is not seriously hurt.

The 25-year-old was typically influential as a James Tomkins goal and Luka Milivojevic’s penalty sealed all three points at John Smith’s Stadium, Palace moving two points clear of the bottom three and closing to within just one point of Huddersfield in 15th place.

Zaha, who has spent two significant periods on the sidelines this season due to knee injuries, appeared to be in discomfort when he was replaced by Ruben Loftus-Cheek in the 89th minute.

Hodgson, though, hopes the Ivory Coast international is not set for another spell out of action.

“I don’t know if it is a definite injury,” the manager told a news conference.

“He took quite a few kicks towards the end of the game when we were breaking out and getting the ball up the field on quite a few occasions. 

“There’s also an element of fatigue as he worked very hard, as it was his first full game for seven weeks and he’s been out for a long time. 

“I haven’t been given any indication that he’s picked up any kind of injury; we’re more concerned about Jeffrey Schlupp coming off because he’s rolled his ankle and you always worry with those that he’s damaged some ligaments but we won’t know until he’s had the scan. 

“I’m hoping that him and Wilf will recover.

RH on Wilf: He got stronger as the game went on I thought. In the first half I thought there were a lot of players who were important for us.

With his pace and ability he can go by people. pic.twitter.com/BaeBSXYFNm

— Crystal Palace F.C. (@CPFC) March 17, 2018

“He [Zaha] got stronger as the game went on. In the first half there were a lot of other players who were important to us, but the longer the game went on it opened out because Huddersfield needed to get back into the game. 

“That’s where Wilf comes into his own because with his ability on the ball he can go past people.”

Huddersfield have taken just one point from their last three matches as their battle to avoid an immediate return to the Championship continues, manager David Wagner acknowledging his players did not do enough to warrant a positive result. 

He said: “We were below par today. We deserved this defeat, unfortunately. It’s a defeat I’m able to deal with because I know exactly what wrong. We were not good enough in ball possession. We were not calm enough.”