Roy Hodgson hoping for good news on Sakho injury as Crystal Palace injury list numbers nine

BY RICHARD CAWLEY

Roy Hodgson is hoping for good news on Mamadou Sakho’s hamstring injury – with the French centre-back forced off in yesterday’s 1-1 draw at Norwich City.

The Eagles have nine senior players in the treatment room.

And centre-back has been hit badly with Sakho, Scott Dann and Gary Cahill also out.

Asked about Sakho’s hamstring setback, Palace manager Hodgson said: “He felt it on a pass – he felt his hamstring.

“I hope it’s not gone in the sense of snapped. He definitely felt a sharp pain in his hamstring and we had no choice but to take him off at half time. It will need a day or two for it to settle down and see how bad the strain actually is. With any luck it won’t be a real bad one and we’ll get him back in a few weeks – we need that.

“It’s ridiculous – we started the season with five quality centre-backs and suddenly are down to one.

“We’ve had eight first-team players out [before the Norwich fixture] – it’s too much. We’ve been lucky that we’ve been able to get what we regard as a good first-choice 11 on the field. But the problem is having people behind who can come and help out.

“Mamadou getting injured makes it nine but luckily we have Cheikhou [Kouyate] on the bench who can go in and do that, otherwise we’d be putting too many U23 players into matchdays like this. It paid off with Brandon Pierrick but it’s a tough ask to come into a team that is already carrying two or three players who are playing through slight strains.”