The international break has come at a good time for Roy Hodgson in regard to injuries to James Tomkins and Wilfried Zaha.

Palace's 1-0 defeat by Tottenham was the south London side's last game before international matches take precedent, giving the Palace duo a fortnight to recover.

Tomkins

Shortly before Juan Foyth's goal, Tomkins was replaced after succumbing to a blow received in the first half challenging Lucas Moura, for which he also got a yellow card.

“It was a blow to lose James,” said Hodgson

“It was a bad knock on the knee. I don’t think it was an injury that come about from something being torn or twisted, it was quite simply a clash."

READ: Player ratings from Palace v Spurs

Tomkins was impressing at the back with Mamadou Sakho keeping England captain Harry Kane rather quite subdued until the injury cut his evening short as he finally gave in to the pain on the hour mark.

“You could see it was restricting his movement but he wanted to carry on and give it a try. But it was obvious to me he was limping around and doing that game-fully and unfortunately we had to take him off which was a blow.

“(Martin) Kelly came on and he did extremely well, but it was a disruption, and it was a the time of that disruption they scored their goal.”

READ: Hodgson's verdict on the Tottenham defeat

Zaha

Zaha was missing from the starting line-up after failing a fitness test on a hamstring injury picked up in the 3-1 defeat at Chelsea last weekend.

Speaking after the Tottenham defeat, Hodgson revealed Zaha was never really in contention to start the game regarding the return of the Ivorian.

“It was always unlikely he’d recover in time.

“We wanted to get him fit for the Manchester game but Wilf being Wilf he never wants to rule himself out. He wanted to believe something miraculous will happen between Monday and Friday and get out there, but that wasn’t the case as my doctors and physio staff had told me.”

With an international break ahead Hodgson will have two weeks to get Zaha fit for their trip to Old Trafford on the 24th of November.

Palace have not picked up three points when their talisman hasn’t played since September 2016 when the Eagles visited Sunderland and came away with a 3-2 win.