Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson believes he has goals in his team despite the fact they drew another blank against Sheffield United on Sunday afternoon. Much was made of Palace’s failure to score enough goals last season, and if the opening two games of this campaign is anything to go by, they will have the same issues going forward.
The Eagles began the season with a goalless draw at home to Everton last week, and followed that up with a disappointing reverse against the newly promoted Blades at Bramall Lane, to set one or two alarm bells ringing.
John Lundstram fired home the decisive goal after 47 minutes on an afternoon when Palace rarely threatened.
Their only real chance came in the opening five minutes when Christian Benteke stung the palms of Dean Henderson with a shot from a tight angle, while Wilfried Zaha was largely anonymous.
Zaha was recalled to the starting line-up after starting on the bench last week. But for a couple of ill-advised exchanges with George Baldock, Wilder and the home fans, he was hardly involved.
The flying forward is crucial to Palace’s hopes this season, but it remains to be seen how focused he is right now following a summer of huge disappointment.
The transfer deadline came and went without him earning his dream move to Arsenal, and it could take him time to settle into the season and the fact he will be at Selhurst Park until at least January.
Hodgson was quizzed about the situation after the game but refused to give an assessment of Zaha’s display in South Yorkshire. “I’m not prepared to discuss individual players and their performances,” he said.
However, Hodgson does still believe he has goals in his team and has backed them to break their duck soon rather than later. “We didn’t cause Sheffield United the problems we needed to cause them if we were going to get anything from the game,” said the former England manager. “How do we change that? You do the same as you always do, and that is keep working at your game.
You’ve got to keep making the right movements and make sure we are attacking the right areas and that you are constantly giving people a chance to practise the quality of their passing and crosses. “There is no magic wand which changes those things. We’ve played two matches now and haven’t scored a goal and, of course, we know you can’t win matches without scoring goals. “But I believe we have players in the team who are capable of scoring goals, we’ve just got to keep working and keep faith.”
