Hodgson: I’m feeling so hunted

ROY HODSGON says Crystal Palace have gone from the hunter to the hunted.

Boss Hodgson (above) is wary of the chasing pack now he has lifted the Eagles out of the bottom three.

He took over in September after Palace started the season with four league defeats without scoring under Frank de Boer.

And it wasn’t until December, after they followed up a 2-1 win over Watford with a 3-0 victory at Leicester, that they ended a round of league fixtures outside the drop zone.

Palace head into the return fixture against the Foxes in 14th, six points clear of danger with three games left.

Hodgson said: “You’re doing well in this league if you get back-to-back wins. They are gold-dust.

“But now we have something to protect. We have gone from being the hunter to the hunted because the teams below us now are trying to get above us and that is a different proposition. “Playing when really nobody expects much from you and playing when everyone expects a lot from you are two very different things and people expect a lot from us now. Our fans will be expecting the team to survive in this league and that is a responsibility that we have to shoulder.

“It could have been an awful lot worse – we could still be in the bottom three with people feeling sorry for us.

“Now they don’t feel sorry for us any more.

“They believe we are capable of doing it and we certainly believe it too but no words of mine are going to make that happen.

“The people who can make it happen are players, not football coaches.

“All we do is prepare teams to play. You don’t hear a lot about film directors but they are pretty useful to actors.

“You don’t hear an awful lot about orchestra directors but they are pretty useful if you are in an orchestra.”