Roy Hodgson makes Leeds United admission and explains 'major' change leading to Palace blitz

Leeds dominated the opening exchanges of Sunday’s Premier League contest against their relegation rivals but were continually thwarted by some superb saves from Eagles keeper Sam Johnstone who was only beaten by a Patrick Bamford header from a corner.

After being denied by the post, Palace then equalised in first half stoppage time as Marc Guehi beat Illan Meslier to net from close range from an Eagles free-kick and Hodgson’s side then ran riot after the break in netting four goals without reply.

Hodgson admitted his side had to “drag themselves through” in the face of strong early pressure from Leeds but the evergreen 75-year-old boss said a specific instruction during the interval ultimately paved the way for the second half Eagles blitz.

"I’m very pleased, obviously,” said Hodgson at his post-match press conference. “It didn’t look like from the first 20 minutes or so that that would be the scoreline and that we were going to dominate the proceedings as much as we did during the second half.

"But the players did well to drag themselves through the first-half and re-establish a little bit more control as the half wore to an end and we were lucky enough to score at that time.

"Then for the second half we were able to talk about some of the things that we thought could help us and the players took that on board with a vengeance and in the second half we really did see the type of performance that we were really hoping to see from them right from the very start."

Asked specifically what he felt could help his side at half-time, Hodgson explained: "We always talk tactically in everything that we have thought that we wanted to do tactically that we haven't necessarily seen happening. But I think the major thing that was said at half time and the players were very quick to agree was that they were being very aggressive Leeds.

"They were aggressive in their challenges, they won a lot of second balls, they were very strong and determined in all areas and we made it clear I think to the players that we've got to match that or otherwise we can't establish the platform we want to play the football we know we can play and to punish them when we do win the ball back because they are a very offensive team Leeds.

"They come forward with a lot of players, that’s why they created the goal chances that they did in the first 20 minutes and looked so dangerous. But we knew that if we could deal with that by defending strongly and then keep the ball and get the ball into those areas which we eventually did, that with the quality of players that we have on the field that we could ask a lot of questions of them and that's how it panned out."