‘Panto villain’ Benteke sorry for penalty row

Roy Hodgson says Christian Benteke must win over disgruntled Crystal Palace supporters after making peace with his manager and team-mates following his weekend penalty miss.

Benteke was booed from the Selhurst Park pitch on Saturday after wresting the ball from regular penalty-taker Luka Milivojevic deep in added time in the 2-2 draw with Bournemouth.

Hodgson did not hide his anger after the game but says the matter is now closed after the player spoke to the manager and then the rest of the squad when he arrived for training yesterday.

Hodgson said Benteke’s next task was to get the club’s supporters back onside when Watford visit this evening. “I’m not happy with what happened,” said Hodgson. “I’m very happy with the way he’s reacted to it.

“I’m happy with the way he’s taken responsibility; I’m happy with the way he’s explained that to the rest of the team, not just to myself. He’s had the courage to talk in front of the team and explain his decision and basically apologise for not following the instructions he should have done.

“At the moment, Benteke, as far as everyone’s concerned, is some sort of pantomime villain.

“The fans have turned against him; he’s a bit of a pantomime villain, there’s no question of that, but that’s also a bit unfair if you look at his performance, because it was really very good.

“I can’t really defend his decision to take it because we’d nominated a penalty taker and he’d scored the first one and we expected him to take the second one.”