Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson described himself as satisfied with his team’s efforts after they reached his points target for the season.
The win at Newcastle on Saturday all-but ensures the Eagles will be in the top flight again next term and Hodgson was asked if his main emotion was relief at reaching 39 points.
He said: “I think the biggest sense of relief was Huddersfield because that really was a game where if we hadn’t have won, the pressure would have piled up. “Looking at our last fixtures after that, we’d have been looking saying, ‘There are some tough ones.
First we go to Spurs, then we go to Newcastle, we’ve still got to go to the Arsenal, we have got Man City to play’. “Unfortunately, all of these things, it weighs on you and you do think, ‘We could be in trouble’.
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But getting to that 36 points and having an eight-point margin to the teams in the relegation zone – which we have now increased – there’s definitely a feeling more of satisfaction than relief. “The relief came after Huddersfield.” Hodgson says they have now afforded themselves a little bit of breathing space as the season reaches a climax and if they were to slip up then it would not be a calamity.
He continued: “It’s the satisfaction and the knowledge that in the last five games, we can go into them trying to get as many points as we can, but without having to really concern ourselves that if we slip up in any way, it could be decisive.”
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