Roy Hodgson admitted it always seems to be a case of old faces coming back to haunt him as his Crystal Palace side were defeated by a Tom Cleverley wonder strike at Selhurst Park.

Cleverley and goalkeeper Ben Forster, who’ve both worked under the Eagles manager with England and West Brom respectively, starred for The Hornets as their exploits at either end of the pitch captured a 2-1 win.

Craig Catchart' own-goal gave Palace the lead in the first half before redeeming himself at the other end shortly after Foster denied Wilfried Zaha when faced with a one on one.

“Cleverly has got that in him,” said Hodgson.

“Ben (Foster) has it in him too, I signed him for West Bromwich Albion.

“You often come across guys you’ve worked with in the past and they invariable do a great job against you, it’s a fairly common thing and it only happens to you when you’ve been at a few clubs and had a few games under your belt.

“It’s not the first time, and I’m always hoping when it happens it’ll be the last.”

READ: Player ratings from Crystal Palace's 2-1 defeat by Watford

Palace have been linked with a host of players during the transfer window, most notably in the attacking department.

Against Watford it was evident they lacked in the final third as they missed a host of chances which would’ve been a clear example of deja-vu for the manager.

“Again, there aren’t many games I can come off the field and think we were outplayed, beaten, didn’t deserve to win, or the opponents were much better than us. But there have been games like this where we’ve lost narrowly, by the odd goal.

“If you want to win games, you need to take the chances that come your way.

“We started second half very brightly, we had chances to increase the lead, which would’ve made life difficult for Watford but we didn’t and the game evened out.

“With the game in the balance, Tom Cleverley scored that wonder volley.

“They stopped us getting a clear site of goal which unfortunately Tom Cleverly did, I should say a half-site of goal, and scored a wonder volley.

“We could’ve done with that but I think we’ve had our wonder volley for the year up at Man City.”

READ: Report: Crystal Palace 1 Watford 2 - Cleverley super strike sinks Eagles

Despite the seeming case of groundhog day for Hodgson, he was quick to point that the defeat was not through a lack of ‘commitment, desire, or effort,’ preferring to tip his hat to the Watford outfit.

“I don’t think I can ask for a lot more than I got from my players.

“Credit to the opposition, they are a good team and they did very well after taking the lead to make certain we didn’t get those clear-cut chances.

“If I was the Watford manager I would be very proud with how my team defended.”