'Biased as I am' - Roy Hodgson names the 'biggest problem' in Everton's victory over Crystal Palace

Roy Hodgson admitted that Crystal Palace's performance warranted more than defeat by Everton.

The Toffees earned a 1-0 victory at Goodison Park in the FA Cup third-round replay on Wednesday night. The tie was a far cry from a thriller, although Andre Gomes' magnificent 42nd-minute free-kick was a worthy winner of any match. Palace had chances in the game, though, with Jeffrey Schlupp denied a stoppage-time equaliser by Everton goalkeeper Joao Virginia.

Hodgson controversially substituted Eagles talisman Eberechi Eze in the 64th minute, which irked the travelling supporters. However, with the Selhurst Park outfit back in action against Arsenal in Saturday's Premier League lunchtime kick-off, Hodgson confessed that fixture was at the back of his mind.

The Palace manager said: "All defeats are disappointing. I thought this was a game where we probably deserved better than a defeat. I thought that there were an awful lot of positives to our play.

“We decided to change things around a little bit, and it's interesting how that went. I was very satisfied with the way that went.

"The major problem for us has been that we'll get home at two 'o clock this evening [02:00], and at 12:30 we're playing Arsenal on Saturday. That was our problem in a way. It was a good opportunity to see some of the players who rarely get a chance to play.

“Having said all those things, I still think we were good value for a result here today, but we didn't get it thanks to an excellent free-kick which [André] Gomes played – that was unstoppable.

"It's our own fault. If we wanted to progress in the Cup serenely, we'd have won the game at home. We didn't, we drew 0-0, which forced us into a replay.

"It's nothing to do with the schedule, it's just one of those things where as a manager, you have to look at all the possibilities or the options and try to use your squad in the best possible way, while still trying to get a result and I would say, biased as I am, that's exactly what we did, and I think that today we were very unfortunate not to get a result.

"I thought we did more than enough to cause Everton problems and create goal chances. In the last 30 minutes of the game, we had three or four exceptional goal chances, but we can only blame ourselves we didn't take them."