Roy Hodgson insists he does not feel under pressure as Crystal Palace manager, despite a 1-1 home draw with rivals Brighton extending the Eagles’s winless run to seven matches.
Palace led Brighton for 37 minutes due to Jordan Ayew’s first-half header, but Danny Welbeck earned Roberto De Zerbi’s side a draw late on. Palace have not won a home match since beating Wolves on September 3.
Asked whether he feels he is under pressure in the job, Hodgson replied frostily: “I don’t understand — feel the pressure in what respect? I suppose that’s football. If there is a suggestion that every time a team slides down the table a manager should feel under pressure, then I should feel under pressure.
“But I don’t believe the players could be doing much better than they’re doing at the moment. So if that is pressure, I don’t feel it at all.”
Reflecting on the match at Selhurst Park, the 76-year-old said: “We didn’t let it slip. We weren’t able to replicate in the second half the quality of our performance in the first half, where we really did peg them back and stop them playing the way they wanted to play.
“As the game wore on, they got better. We weren’t able to win the ball enough. There might be an element of fatigue involved. I’m afraid an equalising goal was always in the air in the last half an hour of the second half. It turned out to be an extremely good one: a wonder-header from Welbeck. You’re unlucky if you get those goals against you.
“It was a good point against a very good team. We did well enough to get a point but we’re still desperately looking for those three points.
“We took Ayew off because he’s got four yellow cards [one away from a suspension]. We took Will Hughes off, who was wonderful, and brought young David [Ozoh]. That was a tough ask for him, because he came on at a time when they were zipping the ball around and we were finding it much harder.”
Hodgson added: “I don’t think that my decision with regard to substitutions actually helped us a lot, but I must also say that I don’t know it would have been vastly different had those substitutions not taken place, because Will would have found it hard for that last 30 minutes, as would Jordan Ayew.”
