Palace break to curse of Wilfried Zaha

by Staff Reporter

Tuesday Dec 18, 2018. 15:00

Crystal Palace have brought an end to the curse of Wilfried Zaha by beating Leicester City 1-0 at Selhurst Park on Saturday.

Luka Milivojevic scored the only goal of the game for the Eagles who won their first English Premier League match without Zaha in over two years.

The victory ended a run of 13 league defats that had come without Zaha in the team, dating back to a 3-2 win over Sunderland in September 2016.

The Ivory Coast international, who was suspended for the visit of the Foxes, has contributed directly to 38 goals over the past three seasons, with many of his strikes deciding the outcome of matches.

"I've not really given it too much thought to be honest because it's one of those facts that I get hit with," said Palace manger Roy Hodgson to Sky Sports News when asked about ending the streak.

"They mention 13 games but I wasn't in charge for all of those 13 games. I know there have been games where he's not played and we've not won, but some of those games have been pretty tricky games which I'm sure we'd have lost with him as well.

"It's like all statistics. They tell a story but if you really want to know what the story is you've got to read the book, and we don't read the book for statistical stories. We just look at the statistics and we draw our conclusions."