Crystal Palace Fan View: Majestic performance a culmination of Hodgson's work

Complete display from Crystal Palace

If there’s a single game I wasn’t expecting much from in our last few, it was this one against Leicester. They have done excellently in the last four games, picking up maximum points and looking once again like the side that won the league at a canter a couple of seasons ago. As it turned out, Leicester were poor and Crystal Palace magnificent, finally putting everything together in one performance and coming away with a deserved win.

This has been coming. We’ve demonstrated resolve by coming from behind in games, we’ve turned in excellent performances before being pegged back and we’ve ground out draws. Today we played well and won, it’s that simple.

Wilfried Zaha was once again fabulous, but his performance didn’t drag us out of the mire for a change and instead added another facet to a strong all-around performance. We kept the ball well, we exploited the width much more effectively than in recent games and we just seemed so in control. It may sound ridiculous, but that control was most impressive thing for me – a damning indictment of our defending so far this season but a huge positive in my book.

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Christian Benteke instrumental, but all is not forgiven

The headlines will belong to Christian Benteke, who has ‘redeemed himself’ with Saturday’s performance. Not for me.

The penalty miss frustrated me and his behaviour in taking it was always going to incur the wrath of everyone after he missed in such spectacular fashion. One goal, an assist and a better performance may put the bed that problem but it doesn’t forgive the months of ineffective performances we’ve been subjected to, at least not for me.

Most strikers plying their trade in the top flight are capable of nicking a couple of goals in a game, but what differentiates your average striker from the very best is their ability to replicate that form game after game. The only form Christian Benteke has been replicating this season is poor form, he’s missed chance after chance and hasn’t ever contributed enough to our general play.

In a Crystal Palace shirt, he has never replicated the form which saw him snapped up by Liverpool, and he’s been with us for over a season now. I would be delighted to be proved wrong, but there remain too many question marks over his ability to deliver on a regular basis for me to profess that all is forgiven quite yet…

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Strong refereeing decides the match

So often pundits, commentators, managers and spectators criticise the referee for bottling decisions. However, in the space of just a minute on Saturday afternoon Martin Atkinson made two correct, and deeply unpopular, decisions which ensured that the complexion of the match remained exactly as it should have done.

Firstly, Iborra’s header was correctly disallowed for a push on James Tomkins and then moments later Ndidi was dismissed for a blatant dive, going over Scott Dann’s leg… which wasn’t there. We deserved to win the game, even Puel admitted that, but if we’d been pegged back on the hour mark, there’s no telling the response it would have generated from either side.

It wasn’t a perfect performance, a penalty was waved away after Ndidi’s sending off which would have been given ten minutes earlier, but overall Martin Atkinson got the big ones right and I think that’s all any fan or manager is ever hoping for.