Palace need to address questions after Burnley defeat, says Hodgson

Roy Hodgson admits that his Crystal Palace side need to “ask more questions” following their 3-0 home defeat to Burnley.

The Eagles boss could only watch on in dismay as the Clarets won with plenty to spare at Selhurst Park. It was a highly impressive performance and result for Sean Dyche’s men, which now goes a long way to putting plenty of distance between themselves and the Premier League’s bottom three. Burnley – who had captain Ben Mee stretchered off late on with a neck injury - sit 11 points ahead of Fulham, who remain in the drop zone.

Palace, stuck in 13th place, were caught cold with a porous rear guard costing them two early goals; Burnley duo Johann Gudmundsson and Jay Rodriguez doing what turned out to be irretrievable damage. A superb volley three minutes after half time by Matt Lowton sealed the south Londoners’ fate.

And Hodgson gave an honest assessment of what was, frankly, a day to completely forget for Palace.

He said: “Of course we got off to a very bad start – to concede two goals early on was going to make life extremely difficult for the rest of the game.

“Burnley’s performance was clearly so much better than ours. So I think I have to think of it deeper and ask more questions of the team and of ourselves, rather than just put it down to being a bit unlucky to get off to a slow start and they scored a couple of good goals.

"But the third goal, of course, probably killed that hope. We did keep going and we did try and we actually had more possession in their half of the field, but I’m afraid the bottom line is we lost to a better team, were clearly beaten and the 3-0 score line tells it all."

It was the second successive loss for the Eagles, following on from Leeds United last weekend. They do, however, have plenty of time to regroup as their next clash, against rivals Brighton and Hove Albion is not until 22 February.

Palace attacker Jordan Ayew, meanwhile, echoed the overall disappointment – but has urged his team-mates to persevere.

"It’s been two or three games now we’ve conceded in the first 10 minutes,” Ayew explained. “It’s difficult – it’s not the best way to start a game. We need to keep working hard and make sure on Monday we put it right.

“Obviously we just made the game difficult for ourselves – we need to focus on the next game, do our best and put things right.

"I can’t tell you what exactly was wrong. We have to look at ourselves and try to put things right against Brighton because it’s a big game and we have to win that game."