Roy Hodgson defended Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha amid fan criticism after his performance in their 2-0 defeat to Chelsea on Saturday.
The Eagles fell to second half strikes from Tammy Abraham and Christian Pulisic in a scoreline that flattered Hodgson’ men.
Zaha, 27, remained a peripheral figure for much of the contest much to the dismay of the Palace faithful.
Selhurst Park’s crown jewel cut a frustrated figure in Hodgson’s 300th game in charge in a Premier League fixture and there are those believing that the club would be better off without him.
His manager however put his support behind the Palace Academy graduate, praising the commitment Zaha has shown this season while indicating there’s too much expected from him.
“Wilf is doing what he needs to do for the team, he’s working hard,” Hodgson said.
“Against Arsenal he was incredible, maybe against Leicester or Chelsea he wasn’t at his best, but that’s what football is.
“They’re human beings.
“Sometimes you can’t legislate why they don’t have the good game they or you would like, but what you can legislate is the work he’s putting in and the effort to execute and play the teams game plan.
“And in that respect I think Wilf was as good as anybody out there.”
Defeat at Stamford Bridge dropped Palace to tenth in the league table, and after a positive start to the season fans are beginning to feel they should be getting more from their star-man, whilst some put the blame squarley on the managers shoulders.
Palace just not good enough, need clear out, awful defending for first goal. Zaha 80m don’t think so. #cpfc
— BE (@Besiktas1066) November 3, 2019
Zaha has to get out of this club before it destroys his confidence completely. Sadly the awful set of fans we have will turn on him as Roy continually sets up not to lose and use him as an auxiliary left back.#cpfc
— lordrickerz (@rickerz61) November 9, 2019
I don’t like Chelsea. I don’t like losing to Chelsea but what hurts the most is the way we lost. Hardly troubled their defence, which is where they’re vulnerable. #cpfc
— Duleep Allirajah (@DuleepOffside) November 9, 2019
Chelsea 2-0 Crystal Palace ⚽️
— WHEDDSTA 🦅 (@Wheddsta) November 9, 2019
Absolutely dreadful performance.
No positives at all out of that. Just crap.
Zaha atrocious. #CPFC #CFC #AwayDays pic.twitter.com/LO5kW1LtnS
Poor showing by palace today
— Engin Selcuk (@Superturk84) November 9, 2019
...but Chelsea were good and with our squad it's to be expected...roy doesn't know when to make a sub and tactics seem to be a problem...any reasons camarssa isn't playing ? Dont see the point in having him on loan #CPFC
Zaha without confidence. I don't think Luka has been that good either the last couple of games. Next up is Liverpool but after that game we must be getting points again. Could be tough for team confidence after the 5 last games: City, Arsenal, Leicester, Chelsea & Liverpool #CPFC
— Peter A. Carstensen (@PAC_dk) November 9, 2019
I take my hat off to Lampard, future England manager, we did absolutely fuck all, @CEO4TAG you need to open your eyes and let the coach bring in some flair players and a striker, wilf doesn’t give a shit either no cheap or loans well done Chelsea #CFC #CPFC
— JH (@Hape9999) November 9, 2019
Once again Roy uses obvious setup tactically which made it easy for Chelsea - all they had to do was attack, which they were happy to do. JimmyMac had a rare poor game for him, Wilf was marked out of the game, Luka was poor (again). Very disappointing #CHECRY #CPFC
— Glad all Over (@sfield3) November 9, 2019
Awful today. Shouldn’t be setup like that with our team. No adventure. Bench awful. Meyer and Camarasa signings pointless. Fair play to Chelsea, played well. I like Roy, he’s done well for us but can’t continue like this for the next few years. Has to open up #cpfc 🔴🔵
— Stew Whiting (@StewWhiting) November 9, 2019
What would it have taken for Roy to show some attacking intent today? To not even have a creative midfielder on the bench shows there was never any intention to attack regardless of how the game went #cpfc #boring
— Chris Brown (@ChrisCPFC8) November 9, 2019
Yet another #cpfc game where we just look happy to keep the score down! Shocking to watch home and away. What good will another striker be if we don't attack? 🤔
— Chris Lewis (@christheeagle1) November 9, 2019
Well that game made it absolutely Lear. We have to get a decent centre forward. Jordan did well enough but he was on his own Wilf was terrible. Defence was good but we’ve no attack. #CPFC
— Jim Foster (@jimbo2556) November 9, 2019
It's honestly been attack vs defence for 95mins #CPFC
— REILLY (@A_S_Reilly) November 9, 2019
I’ve got no issue with us sitting deep and countering, but we’ve gotta have a plan when we counter attack not just lump it up and chase it #cpfc
— Liam© (@liamb0117) November 9, 2019
Game. Set. Match. Poor play all day. Can't even be surprised by the result. Nobody but Wilf wanted to attack. Kouyate MOTM for us today and just he did his job which says just how poorly we played. Let's get past liverpool and get back to winning ways #cpfc #CHECRY
— Thomas Lopez (@datteboyoyaknow) November 9, 2019
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