“I’m half-expecting a nice bottle of red wine” – Roy Hodgson on handing Crystal Palace teenager minutes at Liverpool

BY ANDREW McSTEEN

Brandon Pierrick made his second Premier League appearance for Crystal Palace when he came on as a late substitute at Liverpool last night – with manager Roy Hodgson joking he deserved a gift from the teenager.

The 18-year-old from Lambeth replaced Jordan Ayew in the 84th minute of the 4-0 defeat at Anfield.

Pierrick had made his top-flight debut as an 83rd-minute sub on New Year’s Day against Norwich City.

Hodgson said: “I think he should be very grateful, I’m quite half-expecting that when I go into training tomorrow there might be a nice bottle of red wine for me, thanking me for giving him the opportunity to play at Anfield for the last seven or eight minutes of the game. I’m probably hoping in vain, but that would be nice.

“The bottom line of that is that we’ve got one out-and-out forward at the moment, because Andros Townsend is a winger-cum-wide-midfielder. So we’ve got one out-and-out forward in our squad [Jordan Ayew], it was just a chance of giving him 10 minutes rest at the end of the game because I’ll need him in the games coming up.”