Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson wants to sign FIVE players to strengthen his injury-hit squad

BY SAM SMITH

Roy Hodgson has once again applied pressure on the Crystal Palace hierarchy to provide funds to strengthen his squad next month.

Patrick van Aanholt hobbled off in Palace’s 2-1 victory over West Ham today to add to a lengthening list of absentees for the South London outfit.

The Eagles could have seven of their first-team squad of 23 players missing for Saturday’s trip to Southampton.

When asked by Amazon Prime Video where he sees his side finishing this season, Hodgson said: “We’ve got to be saying we need to stay in the league. That’s because we’ve got such a small squad and you can’t keep asking miracles of these players.

“You saw Kouyate running himself into the game playing with a slight injury – what’s he going to be like on Saturday? If we can get through Christmas and if the chairman can give us four or five players to strengthen the squad, we’ll do extremely well. I’m hoping, new signings or not, this group of players will keep Crystal Palace in the Premier League.

“We’ve talked about needing signings for a long time so maybe this is the transfer window when that happens. It’s not easy but the squad definitely needs strengthening because some of our players have been out for a long time.

“[Jeffrey] Schlupp’s a long-term injury, [Andros] Townsend’s a long-term injury, and we’re not going to be seeing [Joel] Ward for four to five weeks. Sooner or later, we need to get some people in to help us out.”

The former Palace striker Clinton Morrison was working as a pundit and quipped: “I’ll give Steve [Parish, Palace co-chairman] a call,” to which Hodgson responded: “He listens to you!”