With Wilfried Zaha a major doubt, Roy Hodgson's own magic touch will now be crucial to saving Crystal Palace

The Eagles will no longer be able to rely on Zaha's star quality now that he faces a lengthy spell on the sidelines. Fortunately for them, Hodgson has a record of saving teams from the drop

Roy Hodgson must look to whip his side into shape as the relegation fight heats up (Getty)

Roy Hodgson has made no secret of his admiration for beautiful football. He is a lifelong student of the game who, in an interview last month, let slip a little of the boyish love for the sport that still lives within him and keeps him arriving early at the training ground every morning, even at the age of 70.

“I like the artistry of the game,” he told The Guardian. “I still get a lot of pleasure watching the good quality teams play, where the movements of the players are coordinated. It’s almost balletic.”

When you watch Hodgson’s Crystal Palace, however, ballet is not usually the first thing that comes to mind. Wilfried Zaha, though, is one player blessed with dancing feet and the Ivorian forward has been one of the Premier League’s standout performers this season.

Wilfried Zaha could be set for a lengthy spell on the sidelines (Getty)

Twinkle-toed and daring, Zaha is one of the finest dribblers in any of Europe’s top leagues. His one-v-one ability to flip-flap past an opponent or wriggle his way through a massed defence is an increasingly rare commodity and exactly why so many top clubs are once again fixating on Zaha, as they did when he was a rising teenage star.

The 25-year-old forward was in fine form again on Sunday as Crystal Palace drew with Newcastle, a salvaged draw that felt like two points dropped. The Eagles actually boasted the best expected goals (xG) score of any team in the Premier League this weekend but contrived to miss a glut of chances and allow Newcastle to slip away from south London with a draw.

Such a mundane result in early February between two of the ten-or-so sides in the relegation battle may not appear all that important, but a knock sustained by Zaha in the first half threatens to drastically alter Palace’s prospect this season and, inevitably, that of the hive of teams buzzing around them.

At the moment the club is waiting on scans and are understandably reticent to speak further on the injury and whether it was needlessly aggravated by keeping Zaha on the field for the remainder of the game, but initial reports on Monday peg the winger as missing a considerable chunk of the Eagles’ 12 remaining Premier League fixtures.

Palace will miss Zaha's influence in the months ahead (Getty 2017)

For Palace, just three points above the drop zone, that is a blow they simply couldn’t afford.

A squad repeatedly thinned during Alan Pardew’s reign has been exposed over the past 18 months at the worst possible times and it appears to have happened again.

The club failed to get adequate back-up at left-back in summer 2016, only for Pape Souare to sustain serious injuries in a car crash a week after the transfer deadline that left the club without a specialist in the position. Having needed a striker last summer to replace the outbound Loic Remy and Fraizer Campbell, Palace couldn’t get a forward over the line and were duly punished by the cruelty of the football Gods when Christian Benteke went down in September. A major injury to Zaha so soon after the January window has shut would be an unwelcome repeat of a familiar refrain and another hurdle for Palace to overcome in their desperate bid for safety.

Should Zaha be out for any period of time it would be, quite evidently, a savage blow to Palace’s chances of survival. One scout, when asked recently about the Ivorian’s talents, quipped that not only was he the Eagles’ most dangerous player, he was “the only one that made them watchable.”

Premier League points, fortunately for most of the league, aren’t awarded for aesthetics though. Palace, without Zaha, will be thankful for that too.

Because here, most likely, is where things are about to get a little more functional. Deprived of the spark of Zaha – or even his notional back-up Bakary Sako, also struck down by a long-term injury – this is going to be a team that lacks creative spark and the Hollywood flashes to which fans have become accustomed.

Hodgson is now crucial to Palace's survival, more so than any player in his team (Getty)

Indeed it is Hodgson now, more than any player, who is crucial to Palace’s survival. He counts on a wildcard in the shape of new signing Alexander Sorloth, a 22-year-old Norwegian striker who is raw but counts on some big fans in the scouting community.

He has a centre-forward of proven Premier League quality in Christian Benteke, who needs to find the form that has evaded him in recent months. Andros Townsend and Yohan Cabaye will need to step up as creators. But Hodgson, you feel, will need to cook up a gameplan that gets the Eagles the nine or ten points needed to stay in the Premier League.

Lucky, then, that he has a significant track record of doing just that. Palace have a winnable game against Everton next, a side that are hopelessly low on confidence but who boast a manager with significant insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the Eagles’ personnel.

And what follows is the most crucial stretch of their season – a two-week break with no fixtures where Hodgson will have an abundance of time to prepare his side for the subsequent games against Tottenham, Manchester United and then Chelsea.

All that experience and nous often comes in handy more in those mismatch games than it does against sides like Newcastle, where Palace were superior but unable to make that count. With Spurs and United playing primetime games at Selhurst Park under lights after a significant break, Hodgson is being given an ideal situation to cause an upset – even if he’d point to his list of injuries as evidence to the contrary.

Scott Dann, Jason Puncheon, Jeffrey Schlupp, Connor Wickham and Ruben Loftus-Cheek were already long-term absentees before Bakary Sako joined the pile. Zaha may yet be added to the list, though there is hope that Martin Kelly’s hamstring injury may see him miss just one game.

Either way, with no direct replacement for Zaha’s sparkle, it might by Roy Hodgson’s sprinkle of coaching magic that is most decisive now in Crystal Palace’s bid for survival.