Hodgson: Ivorian Zaha is Crystal Palace's best player

Wilfried Zaha

Saturday Mar 17, 2018. 13:30

Ivory Coast international Wilfried Zaha is Crystal Palace's best player according to the club's manager Roy Hodgson.

The 25-year-old winger made his return from injury against Chelsea FC in an English Premier League game last weekend.

Zaha grabbed an assist as Palace suffered a 2-1 defeat to the Blues at the Stamford Bridge in London.

“He [Zaha] has the exceptional ability to run with the ball and beat people,” Hodgson told Sky Sports.

“Those type of players are very important as we saw in the Chelsea-Barcelona game and Lionel Messi. If Messi hadn't played it could have been a totally different result [Barca won 3-0].

"We have had to do without [Zaha, Mamodou Sakho, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Yohan Cabaye] for a long period of time and as I said about Lionel Messi, you watch a game [against Chelsea] and you wouldn't have to be too intelligent to work out that this guy is so important for his team and if you took him out of their team, they might not be quite as dominant as they have been," he added.

“All four are definitely available and I have to pick what I think is the best starting 11 from this group - something I haven't been able to do for a long period of time.

“Having these guys come back has helped remove any lingering gloom there might have been, and most important of all it stops you feeling sorry for yourself, because that's a very dangerous thing to do."

Zaha, who is a former Manchester United player, has scored four goals in 21 league matches for Palace this season.