Opposition View: Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson had no grievances about the nature of Glenn Murray’s winning goal, as the Eagles were knocked out of The Emirates FA Cup following a 2-1 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion.

There was an element of debate as to whether or not the ball brushed Murray’s arm before crossing the line late in the match, and Hodgson admitted the VAR system had been put into good use for the incident.

He said, "We had suspicions at first [about the goal]. I suppose they were fuelled by the reaction of the people close to it; our goalkeeper and the players close by seemed to be incensed.

“From our angle, to be fair, it looks for all the world as if he's guided the ball in with his arm. But I think you have to congratulate the system. When you watch it lots of times like they've been able to do from different angles, I think it would've been very harsh [to disallow it].

"There's still a slight thought that it might have come off his thigh and brushed his arm into the goal, but to be honest, if it had been my player scoring that goal, I'd have been very upset if it was disallowed for handball.

“I think it was a genuine goal and I think the referee on the field, Andre Marriner, was helped by the fact he had Neil Swarbick in the VAR studio making a judgement which could help him out. So, I have no complaints about that all.”

Hodgson felt that his side’s first-half performance wasn’t good enough and admitted that avoiding a potential replay has its benefits, with both Albion and Palace looking to gain vital league points to move further away from the Premier League’s relegation zone.

"First half, it wasn't very good - second half, I thought it was better. I thought it was a good goal from [Bakary] Sako after we started the second half brightly.

“It seemed to me that we were heading towards a draw, then the goal was scored and that's the end of it for us."

"I'm not happy to go out, but on the other hand, neither Chris Hughton nor myself would've been overjoyed with a replay, given our situation in the league."