The Crystal Palace manager has revealed the reasoning behind his substitution of Eberechi Eze with fans not happy with the decision.
The Eagles were knocked out of the FA Cup on Wednesday night after their third-round replay against Everton finished 1-0 to the home side.
Andre Gomes scored the only goal of the game when he curled a beautiful free kick into the back of the net on the 42nd minute.
Fans were not impressed by Hodgson’s decision to substitute arguably their biggest attacking threat, Eze, off for Matheus Francs in the 64th minute.
The travelling support could be heard chanting ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ as their side chased the lead.
Speaking after the game, the England manager stated that the decision was based off fitness with an eye on this weekend’s clash against Arsenal.
‘If I was a fan, I wouldn’t have wanted to see Eze taken off either, as he’s one of our best players.’ He said via The Standard.
“But I also would be extremely disappointed as a fan if he’d have played another 30 or 35 minutes and got injured in the process.
“We play at 12:30pm on Saturday [against Arsenal] and we need people like Eze”