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Roy Hodgson: Wolves have been unlucky as of late

Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson reckons Wolves have been ‘unlucky’ with results not reflecting their performances.

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Hodgson revealed he watched Wolves’ 1-0 loss to Braga in the Europa League on Thursday – and felt Nuno Espirito Santo’s charges were ‘clearly the better side’.

“Unfortunately, that is part of the business, kicking teams when they’re down and also when they’re up, but it is all part of the business,” said the former Albion boss.

“But we don’t approach games in that way: ‘Here’s a team that is down and we need to be more ruthless.’

“We really approach it that this is a home game against a team that is in the same part of the table as we are and it is important to try and get the three points.

“I think they’ve probably been a little bit unlucky.

“I haven’t analysed all their five (Premier League) games but watching the game (on Thursday night), where they were clearly the better side and played some very good football, I would base my judgement of them on the football they’ve played and the way they went about it, rather than looking at the result and saying: ‘there’s another bad result.’”

Hodgson found watching the Braga game on TV useful but insists the best level of detail always comes from the club analysts.

“It’s a much greater concentration on Wolves, than it was on Braga, and you’re trying as best you can from TV coverage, which of course does cover the whole of the field and covering where the ball happens to be,” added Hodgson.

“When we do our analysis of teams it is a lot easier because we have a wider view.

“It is still useful to get a further idea of the shape of the team. But I must say the greatest preparation we have will come from all the video analysis which has been going on all week, which will hopefully give us an even clearer picture of what the real strengths of Wolves are and where any possible weaknesses might lie.”