Crystal Palace Manager Roy Hodgson Rues 'Crucial' Penalty Miss After 2-0 Everton Loss

Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson rued his side's missed penalty after the Eagles lost 2-0 at Everton on Sunday.

Roy Hodgson's team were gifted a golden opportunity to take the lead in the 59th minute when Wilfried Zaha was awarded a penalty. 

However, Luka Milivojevic's weak effort was saved by Jordan Pickford and Palace went on to lose the game in the dying minutes after goals from Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Cenk Tosun.

Hodgson expressed his disappointment, saying as quoted by Football London: "The penalty was crucial, it didn’t go in and they managed to score two goals, which is hard to take."

He continued: "You have to take your chances. When we had the penalty it would have made a difference, it wouldn’t have lifted the crowd as it did. It lifted them and gave them more impetus going forward."

Despite missing the penalty, Hodgson still felt the result was harsh. He said: "Even then I think it was harsh, because our defending had been good, and I don’t think anyone would have begrudged us a result. But you get what you get and we have to dust ourselves down."

Palace have only mustered five goals in nine Premier League games this season, and talking about Zaha and Andros Townsend's performance in attack for the Eagles Hodgson said: "I thought it worked well today and both caused problems.

"They did their work defensively and we have to be satisfied with their day’s work. Sorloth was sick today and Max Meyer was sick too. Connor Wickham has got on for a few minutes."

Palace's 2-0 loss to Everton came at a bad time as they face Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham and Manchester United in their next four Premier League fixtures and the Palace manager expressed his positivity ahead of this tough run of fixtures, stating: "We will work as hard as we can and we hope we can defend well enough to stifle the opposition.

Chloe Knott - Danehouse/GettyImages

"We haven’t been staring down the barrel in terms of the opponent scoring, and in the first 60 minutes today I thought we were quite dangerous."

Hodgson's side next face Arsenal at Selhurst Park on Sunday. While the Gunners have often been scintillating going forward, they are culpable to defensive lapses and Palace's manager will be hoping his side can pose a greater attacking threat.