Crystal Palace chief: We were staring down the barrel as Arsenal’s quality threatened to overwhelm us

By Anthony Scales

Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson said he felt he was staring down the barrel at half-time at the Emirates, after watching Arsenal open up a 4-0 lead over his charges inside the opening 22 minutes.

But the former England boss said he was able to take heart from a second half which saw his side stem the tide and restore a measure of pride through Luka Milivojevic’s goal in an eventual 4-1 defeat.

“[Defeat] was hard to take because we conceded two goals from corner kicks, which is something we haven’t done a lot recently,” said Hodgson. “We’ve been quite strong at avoiding those goals.

“We came up against an Arsenal in that early period, buoyed by the early goal, who showed the full range of their passing skills and their movement in the middle of the field, the speed and accuracy of their passing, and it certainly had us very much on the back foot.

“At half-time I thought we were staring down the barrel of a gun. A team of Arsenal’s quality, with the players of the quality they have, they can’t possibly lose; it was just a question of how many they would score.

“But we marshalled ourselves and showed the character that the players showed in the second half. The players showed desire, produced the workrate and the energy they needed in the second half. And it turns out we managed not only to stop them scoring more goals, we got one of our own, which took us to minus-three rather than minus-seven or eight.

“The game was over very early for us today, at 2-0 after seven or eight minutes. At the Emirates against Arsenal, that’s not a good position to be in.”