Crystal Palace are amidst an injury crisis ahead of their FA Cup showdown with Derby on Sunday.

Following the 1-1 draw at Norwich on Wednesday, Hodgson also revealed Mamadou Sakho will be unavailable after hobbling off at Carrow Road while Wilfired Zaha remains an injury doubt.

“Our injury list has been added to with Sakho, whose hamstring went at Norwich, so he’ll be missing for a considerable period of time,” he said.

“Gary Cahill did his first training session today (Friday) which is positive, so it’s one in and one out in that department, apart from that its all the same.

“Wilf played with injury on Wednesday, we didn’t know he’d be available on Wednesday until the very last minute so he’s touch and go and it’ll be unlikely that we’d do that to him again on Sunday.

“It’s a difficult situation, maybe more so for us because of the long injury list, and the squad is so remarkably small.

“But we do need to play what is close to our best team, even if we risk injury ahead of important games in the league.”

Joel Ward, Scott Dann, Patrick van Aanholt, Jeffrey Shclupp, Andros Townsend and Christian Benteke will all be missing for the visit of Phillip Cocu’s Rams boasting Wayne Rooney.

Never Rule Zaha Out

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Despite strong indications from Hodgson that Zaha will not be available for the encounter, the Eagles boss admitted he’d never rule out the 27-year-old after his history of rapid recoveries.

“I’m not surprised he played at Norwich,” he continued.

“That’s what he is, he’s fantastic, he’s a real warrior in the sense he always wants to play.

“He’s recovered from injuries weeks before the prognosis, he comes back quicker on so many occasions.

“I was surprised he played, even more surprised he played 90 minutes.

“We have two days, I won’t write him off, I’m just weary and sceptical whether we can get him out there.”

FA CUP

Hodgson revealed his respect for football's oldest cup competition and admitted he would ideally want to put more resources into Sundays fixture that will be kicking-off at 2:01 on Sunday.

A minute serving to raise awareness and to get people talking about their mental health as part of the ‘Take A Minute Campaign’ endorsed by Prince William.

“The FA Cup is a great competition, everybody loves it,” Hodgson said.

“Nobody wants to say ‘I’m not interested in the FA Cup, it doesn’t matter what happens to us because only the Premier League that counts,’ that’d be a very foolish thing to say and a bold thing to say.

“But the bottom line is we have to balance what is available to us and take the findings from the sports science people on the risk if we play certain players, we have to weigh them up.

“But I’m certain the team we put out will be the most competitive team without jeopardising our future.”

Derby come into the fixture on the back of a 2-1 win over Barnsley on Thursday evening in what was Rooney's debut for the club.