My boys took one hell of a beating, rues Hodgson

ROY HODGSON likened Crystal Palace to a boxer fighting out of his weight category after being knocked out yet again without landing a blow, this time at Manchester United.

After Palace’s seventh straight scoreless league defeat, Hodgson won’t have faced any situations as depressing as this in a 40-year management career with 21 different clubs and countries.

They turned up at Old Trafford without eight key players including Christian Benteke, Wilfried Zaha, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and three centre-halves, forcing Hodgson to name winger Bakary Sako at centre-forward with a rookie from Margate, Freddie Ladapo, on the bench.

‘I fear we have to accept we’re like a boxer fighting in a weight class that we can’t handle,’ said Hodgson (below) after a 4-0 drubbing.

‘We took blows to the chin and got knocked down.

‘I had a winger from Wolves at centreforward but we don’t have any options at the moment. The boy from Margate has never had sniff of Premier League football before. That’s the only choice unless you go back to 4-6-0.

‘I knew when I took over at the club that centre-forward was going to be a problem. Maybe when Zaha comes back fit, that might give us a bit more potency.’

630 goalless minutes for Palace from the start of the season — the most since Halifax Town in 1990-91 (730)

1 Palace are the only team in Europe’s top five divisions yet to score a league goal this season 2 Palace are the second team to lose their first seven PL games, after Portsmouth (2009-10)