Roy Hodgson is keeping upbeat amid mixed fortunes at Crystal Palace

'The most important for me was a clean sheet,' Hodgson said after the draw with Newcastle. 'We played a good game and we can take a lot of positives'

Palace have yet to win at home this season (Getty Images)

In a season that had up to this point only seen two wins and three defeats from five games, a draw offered the reassurance of a point with the promise of more if Crystal Palace can maintain this level of performance.

Against a distinctly unimaginative Newcastle side on Saturday, Palace did more than enough to win all three points at a rain-soaked Selhurst Park, only for missed chances to cost them a first home win of the campaign.

Mamadou Sakho – “disappointed” with his miss, according to Roy Hodgson – had an open goal after Martin Dubravka misjudged a late cross but headed wide of the gaping net to miss the hosts’ best chance of the day. James McArthur, Patrick van Aanholt and others had their opportunities too but on a greasy, skiddy surface up against a well-organised Newcastle side it was to be only a point – but a point to build on in the eyes of Hodgson.

“These things happen,” said the 70-year-old coach. “These sorts of games occur during the season. We didn’t panic at any time, Newcastle defended very well. It was frustrating of course that we didn’t take our chances.

“We’ve got a lot to cling to today because it was a good team performance.”

Captain Luka Milivojevic hit the post from a free-kick and forced Dubravka to parry away from another set-piece but he too saw the glass as more than half-full on a day when any vessel left out in the elements would have overflowed from the downpours.

“The most important for me was a clean sheet,” he said. “We played a good game and we can take a lot of positives.”

For Palace now it is a League Cup tie with West Brom before visiting Bournemouth next Monday night. That is a game where Palace will fancy their chances and it hands Wilfried Zaha some extra days to recover from the back issue that plagued him in the warm-up. Indeed, Hodgson suggested such an issue may have been behind his “quieter” display after a week where he was surrounded by a lot of noise.

Hodgson has some decisions to make in attack, though, with Christian Benteke out and Jordan Ayew not enjoying as productive an outing as when he led the line at Huddersfield. It may even mean a return to the makeshift front pairing of Zaha and Andros Townsend for the trip to the Vitality Stadium next week.

“Jordan worked hard again,” said Hodgson. “I don’t think the performance today was quite at the same level as last week, where he was exceptional, but he worked hard.

“[Alexandr Sorloth] when he came on did well too. He was a threat and made their defenders work really hard.

It was a frustrating afternoon for the hosts (Getty Images)

“I’ve now got the choice next week of using one or the other of those or both but I’ve also got the choice of Wilf and Andros, they’ve done extremely well for us in the past in those positions so I personally haven’t written off them as forward players because I have so many good memories of what they did for us last year.”

Eventually, though, Palace will have to win at home. It may even coincide with the return of the Holmesdale Fanatics to Selhurst Park, with the supporters group and the club working hard to find an agreement that will bring the noise back to a stadium that had garnered a reputation as the Premier League’s loudest.

A victory to cheer should help the decibel level, but aside from the results Hodgson remains confident that the performances are there.

“Over the game the quality of our passing, the quality of our movement and the quality of our defending was very good and, under normal circumstances, that would have been enough to win us the game. But it didn’t so we accept it was 0-0 and we move on.

“We try to make certain that in the next 33 games we don’t drop from the standard we set today which was a lot better than our last home game here.”