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Roy Hodgson said he would not apologize for the way Crystal Palace acted after injury time winner Christian Benteke clinched a 2-1 win over bitter rivals Brighton.
Palace’s two goals came from his only two shots on goal, and touches in the Brighton area, throughout the game as the visitors spent much of the match defending.
Last week, one of the club’s fan groups criticized the Palace manager for his “courageous defensive tactics” after consecutive losses at home.
“The game is not about touches in the opponent’s area, is it? The game is about scoring goals and not letting any in,” Hodgson said.
“I thought we worked incredibly hard to try and make sure we didn’t let any goals in.
3:03
FREE TO SEE: Highlights of Crystal Palace’s victory at Brighton in the Premier League
“I thought we worked very hard to prevent them from having a lot of chances and tonight we were lucky that the two chances we created, and both were very good goals, we took advantage of them.
“The statistics that count at the end of the day are the goals against and the goals for.
“Okay, they had the best possession, that’s for sure, they had the ball in our box more often, they had more quality, but I’m not going to apologize for coming out with what we consider to be a very good victory.”
Hodgson, who is out of contract for the summer, urged fans to be “careful” about what they wished for in preparation for the game after the recent unrest.
Mateta’s first goal for the club, a deft cornering heel, and Benteke’s thunderous blow took Palace 10 points away from the last three.
Wednesday March 3 8:00 p.m.
Start 8:15 pm
The victory was also the first of this season in the absence of the injured talisman Wilfried Zaha.
“I don’t feel the need to be vindicated,” Hodgson said. “I don’t like to use that word because the use of the word vindication would suggest that something has gone very wrong with what we’ve been trying to do all season. I don’t think vindication is the right word.
“We needed a better performance, we needed to show the commitment, the courage, the desire that we showed tonight in such an important match. We needed to do it because our two previous matches were obviously not good enough.”
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