Roy Hodgson calls for Crystal Palace players to muster mental strength

By Shona Duthie

Friday 13 April 2018 09:48, UK

Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson wants his players to display mental strength to fight the "swings and arrows" that happen in football games to fight off relegation in their five remaining Premier League games.

Palace sit just one place above the relegation zone ahead of their match against Brighton on Saturday at Selhurst Park.

Hogdson's side have five games left to secure their Premier League status and their manager believes they have shown the hard work but now need to dig deep down mentally.

Speaking to Sky Sports News he said: "What I need to see now for the last five games is a continued belief and a faith of the hard work they have put in on the training field.

"They need to harvest the mental strength they can possibly muster to make certain they can survive the swings and arrows which are definitely going to happen in games.

"The bad refereeing decisions, missed goal chances, errors which have cost the goal, it is the mental strength we are going to need to survive all of those things that happen in a game of football which throw you off kilter if you are not careful."

Palace face Brighton, Watford, Leicester City, Stoke City and West Brom in their final five games, something Hodgson called "five opportunities" to stay in the Premier League.

They have lost two of their last four, drawing one and winning one, and now the former England manager wants his players to have complete confidence in their abilities.

"The only way we can instil it [mental strength] is if they are 100 per cent confident in what they think they are capable of doing on the field of play they can actually do because they are not being made to do things they are uncomfortable with," he added.

"They have to have trust and faith in their team-mates so if they play the right sort of passes they have been working on, their team-mates will be in the right sort of positions to pick up on it.

"I think that gives you some degree of mental strength. But it is one of those things that is very difficult to define, I think as a coach you have to work much harder on the tactical, physical and technical side, the things you can control.

"Then you hope the mental strength is going to develop through players seeing what they are doing on the field of play is working and is going to bring results."

Hodgson also admitted he will have a "good night sleep" on May 12 ahead of the final game of the season if Palace have fought off being relegated to the Championship before then.