Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson pleased to see under fire Christian Benteke working harder for the team

Roy Hodgson says he was impressed with Christian Benteke’s performance against Watford, despite the Belgian extending his run of games without a goal to 13.

It may have been a different story from the former England boss, had his side not scored two late goals to come from behind and take three valuable points from Marco Silva’s side. However, after Benteke’s penalty mishap Hodgson was happy with his striker.

While he had few chances to impact the game, with Watford defending tight and cutting off the service for the majority of Tuesday night’s clash, the 27-year-old gave his manager plenty to smile about.

“I think it helps, but he would have liked to have been able to score a goal or to do something a little bit spectacular during the course of the game,” Hodgson said when asked if all Benteke needed was to be on the winning side.

“It wasn’t easy for him, their three centre-backs were very tight markers and there was a lot of situations in the game where fouls could have gone either way - too many went against us for my liking but I’m sure [Marco] Silva will say too many were against him for his liking.

“But the thing that impressed me with him was that he kept going, he never hid and he did something really quite incredible in the last minute of the game which he’s not associated with when he chased that ball down, back to Gomes and forced him into a poor kick and effectively killed the game dead for us.

“It is a minor moment in the game, I know, and I’m sure it’s not going to be flagged up as one of the highlights of this match, but when you’re a coach sometimes those type of moments mean a lot to you.

“We do work with him and encourage him to work a bit harder on the defensive side of the game, which is not natural for him, so when you see that happening it gives you a little bit of pleasure.”