Roy Hodgson insists there is no bad feeling towards Wilfried Zaha in the dressing room after the winger failed to seal a deadline day move away from Selhurst Park.

The Ivory Coast star made no secret of his desire to move away from SE25 this summer, with Saturday’s opponents Everton keen to lure him to Goodison Park.

But Palace stood their ground and held on to their prize asset, who came off the bench to loud cheers from the Eagles faithful during the 0-0 opening day draw with the Toffees.

That reaction demonstrated there is no hostility to Zaha from the supporters and the manager is adamant the same applies among the rest of the playing staff.

Hodgson said: “Today with his performance when he came on, I don’t have any fears for that because we have such a good dressing room. We have such a lot of good characters.

“Wilf in my opinion isn’t a bad character either, so I’m not really fearing that side of things, but it might take him a day or two still to get over his disappointment.

“I suppose when you are disappointed you can’t expect people necessarily to get over it the very next day but I’m not seeing any long-term problems.

“The fact he has made himself available for today’s game, came on and did what he did, that answers all questions really.”

The Palace boss added: “In terms of our discussions, and I will speak for the players as well in this regard, we’ve have had no problems with him.

“As far as we are concerned he is now going to be doing his level best like he has done in these last two seasons to do well for Crystal Palace and help us win games, as you saw him try to do when he came on.

“But I must add as well he has been away for over three weeks at the African Cup of Nations. He is a phenomenon when it comes to athleticism.

“He cannot train for four or five weeks and still get out there and look like a good athlete.

“I still think it is going to take him a little bit more time but certainly a good week’s training before we are going to get the best out of him.”

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The biggest cheer during the Toffees stalemate came in the 65th minute when Zaha came on to replace Jordan Ayew.

“It was wonderful wasn’t it,” said Hodgson. “It is very nice they are that forgiving.

“He has not said anything to me but I’m pretty sure he must have been thinking ‘I wonder how they are going to react to me?’

“He knows they love him, he knows they really appreciate him but of course when you do make public statements that I want to leave the club and there are bigger and better clubs out there for me, you do run the risk of the fans not being happy with you.

“Luckily for him and for us that wasn’t the case today. I think the reception he got was quite fantastic.

“That is good for me and the players as well because we have made no bones at any stage about how much we would like him to stay with us and play with us.

“He now knows it is not just me, the coaching staff, the players and the club in general, it is also all those fans who follow us – they want him to stay.”

Despite Zaha’s disappointment at missing out on a summer move, Hodgson pointed out the winger isn’t the type of character to throw a strop behind the scenes.

The Palace chief explained: “I think and hope he will want to draw a line under it.

“Certainly today you saw a lot in his performance. He trained on Monday and Tuesday. I said he could have Thursday off for obvious reasons but he came in and trained on Friday.

“If I was to judge those three training sessions his attitude and his application was absolutely spot on. It was certainly no worse than it has ever been, if anything better.

“He went out there today and gave a performance as well.

“We’ve got eight days before our next game so let’s hope he can get down to work, get himself fitter and more integrated with the squad, because as I say we haven’t seen a lot of them since the end of last season when he went off to Africa.”

Next up for Palace is a tricky looking trip to newly-promoted Sheffield United on Sunday where Zaha can expect himself to be firmly back in contention to start, according to the manager.

Hodgson said: “All of those players who were there today have a chance of starting, there is no question about that.

“The only ones who don’t have a chance of starting in our very small squad are the ones who are injured.

“I don’t rule anyone out in terms of their chances of starting.

“We will have to wait and see what team I select but I was certainly very satisfied with the XI who started today.

“I was happy to have substitutes like Conor Wickham and Wilf Zaha to bring on to maybe change the way we play a bit or to ask different questions.”