Roy Hodgson Uses Boxing Analogy to Describe Palace's Woes after 4-0 Thumping at Old Trafford

Crystal Palace faced their eighth consecutive loss of the season as Manchester United won 4-0 at Old Trafford on Saturday afternoon. 

Eagles manager Roy Hodgson compared his team's current form to the press by using the analogy of boxer fighting above his 'weight class', The Guardian reports. 

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Hodgson believes that his side has an unfair disadvantage as star players Christian Benteke and Wilfried Zaha were out from injury.

“I don’t want to criticise my players in any way but we are taking a few blows to the chin,” he said. “We are without Zaha, Benteke and Loftus-Cheek and we lost Scott Dann the day before the game.

"We are playing with a winger from Wolves [Bakary Sako] at centre‑forward. Add all those things together and we have to accept we are the boxer fighting in a weight class he is not able to handle at the moment.

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"We are taking the blows and getting knocked down, but we are attempting to respond and not stay on the canvas.”

Hodgson is still optimistic about Palace making a breakthrough after international break, where in a fortnight his side will face Chelsea at Selhurst Park.

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He believes that the current form Palace are in could come as motivation and as a lesson later on in the season once the South London side make an improvement. 

“We are in a difficult situation but at least we know we are not going to have to play 38 games against City and United,” Hodgson said.

“If we can stop the players doubting themselves too much then who knows, we might look back on this terrible spell and say it helped us build the character to stay in the league.

"The lessons we are learning at the moment could stand us in good stead later in the season.”