Crystal Palace confirm double injury blow ahead of United fixture

Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson has issued an update on Dean Henderson ahead of Saturday’s clash with Man United.

Crystal Palace will be without goalkeeper Dean Henderson and striker Odsonne Edouard for Saturday’s Premier League meeting with Manchester United at Old Trafford, manager Roy Hodgson has confirmed.

Henderson, who swapped M16 for Selhurst Park in the latter stages of the summer transfer window, was forced off with a suspected thigh injury in the first half of Tuesday’s Carabao Cup meeting between the two clubs at Old Trafford. The goalkeeper, who was making his Palace debut, was taken off after just 19 minutes and replaced by Sam Johnstone.

The shot-stopper, who made 29 appearances during his United career, has undergone an initial scan to try and discover the severity of the injury, but will require another one next week. As a result, it is currently unclear how long the former Nottingham Forest loanee will be unavailable for.

Addressing the media at his pre-match press conference on Friday, Hodgson said: “He’s had a scan. The initial scan wasn’t very positive, I’m sorry to say, but he has another scan in a week’s time and maybe we’ll be lucky and that will show somewhat less damage than we saw in the first one, but it didn’t look like good news.”

At the other end of the pitch, Palace will also have to make do with Frenchman Edouard, who is continuing to recover from the hamstring problem that ruled him out of the Londoners’ trip to Old Trafford earlier this week. The former Celtic man has scored five goals so far this season and has started every Premier League game up to this point, highlighting how big a loss he is.

“He’s only missed one game, and that was a Carabao Cup game,” Hodgson added. “This is the first league game he’ll miss.

“I don’t have any fears about him building on his good start or doing what he’s been doing when he gets back into the team, but unfortunately this game has come just a little bit too soon and we can’t take the risk of reactivating his slight muscle injury and make it more. That’s the decision that had to be taken.

“It’s a tough decision to take when you need players, but I wouldn’t have forgiven myself if we’d have thrown him into this game not 100 percent ready, and then find he’s missing for several [games] because the muscle injury, which at the moment is possible for us to handle, suddenly becomes one of those injuries which puts people on the sidelines for up to a month.”

Elsewhere, the likes of Jefferson Lerma, Michael Olise and Matheus Franca remain sidelined.