Roy Hodgson revealed he feels “more than satisfied” with what his injury-plagued Crystal Palace side have achieved despite conceding a late equaliser in their 1-1 draw with Brighton.
Substitute Danny Welbeck nodded past home debutant Dean Henderson in the 82nd minute to cancel out Jordan Ayew’s opener and ensure the rivals’ fifth consecutive Premier League meeting at Selhurst Park ended in exactly the same scoreline.
Palace, in 15th and nine points clear of the bottom three, are now winless in seven and now the unfortunate holders of the longest winless streak in the top flight after surpassing Nottingham Forest’s six, and next travel to Stamford Bridge after Christmas.
When asked if he was feeling any extra pressure due to the Eagles’ recent run of results and subsequent slide down the table, Hodgson said: “Well, I suppose that’s football.
“If I suggest that every time a team slides down the table the manager should feel under pressure, then I suppose I should feel under pressure, but I don’t believe that the players can be doing much more than they are doing at the moment, so if that is pressure, I don’t feel it. No, not at all.
“Don’t forget the next game is Chelsea. I mean, the bottom line is we have to accept that we know what we’re capable of. We also know that even if we bring the absolute maximum of what we’re capable of, if you play a Liverpool, Man City and Brighton it’s going to be a tough ask.
“If after those three performances you can sit here as I am doing tonight and be more than satisfied with what the team has achieved, maybe that counts more than just saying ‘well, you need the three points’ because who doesn’t need the three points? That’s the bottom line.”
It was a mistake by Brighton goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen, giving the ball away to Michael Olise, that ultimately allowed the hosts to work the ball to Ayew for the opener on the stroke of half-time.
Palace were without the Ghana international for Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Manchester City after picking up a pair of bookings against Liverpool and sitting on four yellows, and was swapped in the second half for Eberechi Eze, returning from injury but, Hodgson admitted, “not really as ready as we would like.”
Roberto de Zerbi also played Welbeck longer than he expected, breaking with the original plan for him to play closer to 23 minutes rather than a full half.
He said: “I can say we lost two points. Yes, if you watched the game we lost two points but to win the game we can’t make these mistakes. In the first half we played well, but without the right energy to score and we shouldn’t have conceded the goal.
“Because we considered it another bad goal, and we didn’t score, we didn’t have too many chances, just two big chances, but we are playing with many young players and the young players need time to improve, to progress.
“The policy of Brighton is to play with many young players and we have to accept and we have to be happy, to be ready to play, to work with these young players.”
Brighton winger Kaoru Mitoma left Selhurst Park on crutches after injuring his ankle.
Kane gunning for Lewandowski's single-season Bundesliga goal record
Harry Kane has his eyes set on Robert Lewandowski's single-season Bundesliga goal record after scoring twice in Bayern Munich's 2-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt, though he knows he needs "to get a move on".
Kane scored in both halves on Saturday to take his tally to 42 goals this season across all competitions, also reaching the 400-goal mark at senior level for clubs and country.
The striker scored 280 of those goals for Tottenham, holding the honour of being the club's all-time leading scorer, while he is also the most prolific player in England history with 62 goals for the Three Lions.
With 35 goals in 31 Bundesliga appearances this season, Kane now has his eyes set on another piece of history.
Former Bayern striker Robert Lewandowski holds the record for the most goals scored in a single Bundesliga campaign, netting 41 times in 2020-21.
Asked about the possibility of breaking that record with just three games remaining in Bayern's league campaign, Kane said: "It's possible, but obviously I have to get a move on!
"I've got to maybe score a few goals next week. It's there, it's in touching distance.
"It depends on the last few games of course, but it was nice to add to it today and score a couple of goals to help the team."
Bayern next host Real Madrid in the first leg of a Champions League semi-final tie on Tuesday, before travelling to face Stuttgart on Saturday.
Pochettino says VAR 'damaging' English football as Chelsea denied Villa win
Mauricio Pochettino claimed VAR is "damaging" English football after Chelsea saw a potential winning goal chalked off at the end of their 2-2 Premier League draw with Aston Villa.
Despite a bright performance, Chelsea found themselves 2-0 down at half-time on Saturday with Marc Cucurella putting through his own net before Morgan Rogers added Villa's second.
Goals from Noni Madueke and Conor Gallagher dragged Chelsea level as they penned Villa back after the break, but the Blues were enraged in stoppage time when Axel Disasi saw a potential winner ruled out.
Disasi headed home in the fifth minute of stoppage time to spark wild celebrations among the visiting Chelsea fans, only for referee Craig Pawson to disallow the goal following a pitchside VAR review, ruling Benoit Badiashile pushed Diego Carlos in the build-up.
With that incident coming just one week after Chelsea were denied a penalty in their FA Cup semi-final loss to Manchester City despite Jack Grealish appearing to handle Cole Palmer's free-kick, Pochettino has had enough.
"Everyone that was watching the game will feel disappointed. The referee said it was a foul and disallowed the goal after going to the VAR to confirm," he told TNT Sports.
"The referee is unbelievable and it's ridiculous. It is difficult to accept these types of things. In the semi-final it was handball and it was no penalty, the referee didn't check it.
"It is painful as it has damaged English football and I think Villa players and their fans didn't understand why the goal was disallowed.
"They said it was a foul and if you see the challenge… if we go into every single challenge like this and it is going to be a foul, we wouldn't finish the game with 11 players.
"We can talk about the performance or the decision – it is damaging the game."
Pochettino had no complaints about Chelsea's performance, though, as they avoided defeat for just the fourth time in 51 Premier League games when trailing by two or more goals at half-time.
The Blues previously achieved that feat in a 3-3 draw with Sheffield Wednesday in 1992, a memorable 2-2 draw with Tottenham in 2016 and another 3-3 draw with West Brom in 2020.
Chelsea racked up 21 shots to Villa's nine and put up 1.57 expected goals (xG) to the hosts' 1.1, with Nicolas Jackson and Palmer spurning glorious chances in either half.
"The performance was very good," Pochettino said. "We played really well and it is true in the first half we conceded too easily.
"To play Villa, who are fighting for the top four, I am pleased with the team. Now, we have to move on and the headlines will be about the disallowed goal."
New England Revolution 1-4 Inter Miami: Messi at the double as Herons run riot
Lionel Messi scored twice and laid on a goal for Luis Suarez as Inter Miami retained their three-point lead at the Eastern Conference summit with a 4-1 win over the New England Revolution.
A franchise-record crowd of 65,612 people witnessed a flying start from the Revs as they took the lead within just 37 seconds at Gillette Stadium. Carles Gil pounced on some sloppy play from Miami to tee up Tomas Chancalay, who lobbed Drake Callender for the opener.
However, Miami roared back with Messi leading from the front. They had a deserved equaliser just after the half-hour mark, Messi slotting home after latching onto Robert Taylor's throughball.
Messi had his second after 67 minutes, producing another composed finish after former Barcelona team-mate Sergio Busquets split the New England backline.
Messi was involved in another two goals as Miami added some gloss to the scoreline late on; his first-time shot was saved by Henrich Ravas but Benjamin Cremaschi was on hand to score on the rebound after 83 minutes, then the Argentine teed up Suarez for a curled finish five minutes later.
Miami stay three points clear of Supporters' Shield holders FC Cincinnati at the top of the East, with the Orange and Blue keeping pace by beating the Colorado Rapids 2-1 on Saturday.
Data Debrief: Messi rolls back the years
Ahead of Saturday's game, some feared Miami boss Gerardo Martino would opt to rest Messi after speaking of the risks of fielding the eight-time Ballon d'Or winner on New England's artificial pitch.
However, Messi came through 90 minutes with another mesmerising performance. He has now recorded a goal involvement in 10 straight club matches for the seventh time in his glittering career, last doing so for Barcelona between September and December in 2018.
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