Roy Hodgson won’t let Crystal Palace lose sight of their ‘major goal’… staying in the Premier League
Roy Hodgson will not let his players forget that their target, above anything else, is to ensure they are playing in the Premier League next season, but that does not mean Crystal Palace cannot aim higher.
The Eagles are unbeaten in their last five Premier League games - they might all be draws, but a good foundation nonetheless - with the two most recent being against Arsenal and at Manchester City.
Hodgson's side - ravaged by injury over the past two months - sit just four points from fifth and, with players returning from injury every week, are only going to get stronger as a squad.
Their aim at the start of every season is always the same, another season in the top flight please. But there is room to re-evaluate after such a strong first half of the campaign and with players coming back like new signings. There is no set target, though. No sudden talk of Europe, but Hodgson knows that isn't necessary.
"I don't need to because they have that intrinsic motivation themselves," said Hodgson.
"I am very anxious personally to make sure we don't lose sight of our major goal which is to maintain our status in the Premier League and give the club another one next season. That has got to be 100 per cent the full focus behind everything we do.
"But that doesn't mean to say that every time we go into a game we are there trying to get the points we can get to lift us higher and higher. There is no need for motivational speeches. If ever there were two games where we could have been expected not to get anything from them it is Arsenal and Manchester City and yet the players got out there and did it.
"Now, that isn't because the knife is at our throat because we're in the relegation zone, that is because they want to get higher and higher and get as many points as we can. Of course, the bigger the gap you can put between yourselves and the relegation zone, the more margin you get for eventual failures which will come our way sometimes, in losing a match which people might have expected you to win. Though I must say I don't know in the Premier League for teams like us there are many games we can just be expected to win."
They're next step to moving further away from the relegation scrap - and closer to Europe - which will ramp up as the season progresses, comes in the form of a resurgent Southampton.
Ralph Hasenhuttl's side have been transformed over Christmas. Defeat to Wolves on Saturday put an end to a run of six games unbeaten in all competitions, including a draw against Palace in December.
Southampton have been spearheaded by Danny Ings, whose tally of 14 league goals, is already his best in a Premier League season and has led to calls for him to be included in Gareth Southgate's England plans for the summer.
Ings has a solitary England cap to his name, earned in a 3-0 qualifying win under Hodgson in 2015, and the former Three Lions manager revealed he had seen the now Southampton striker as someone with a big England career ahead of him before injury struck.
"We thought when we capped him that he was going to be an important player for us," said Hodgson. "He had just got his move to Liverpool, it was looking fantastically good in terms of his development and of course he picked up that very serious injury. Then he went to Liverpool to recover from that injury and then picked up another one. His situation is comparable to Connor Wickham's, where suddenly your career comes to an abrupt halt due to serious injuries and it takes a long while for you to get back again.
"I have always believed in Danny and he is one of the players, there are several of them, that in terms of my England career I was unable to use. Oxlade-Chamberlain was another, Danny Welbeck and Ings, all of them had the quality to make the England team at that time a better team but all three were taken from us through injury."
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