James McArthur spoke effusively of the togetherness of the Crystal Palace squad, in a revealing interview about the group.

The Scot midfielder is an integral part of Roy Hodgson’s squad and has become part of the furniture in south London, having clocked up 198 appearances in red and blue since 2014. McArthur was selected for media duty this week to preview the clash with Watford. He said: “Since I’ve come here, it’s been the best dressing room I’ve ever been involved in. The banter is very good, the togetherness is excellent. If you need to dig someone out you can. All those things are important to have a good changing room. When you’ve got a good changing room, it leads to good things on the park.”

McArthur was speaking with Premier League Productions alongside team-mate James McCarthy in a wide-ranging interview, with McCarthy subsequently asked about the sides relative lack of goals, and whether anything was lacking from the Eagles in the final third.

McArthur interjected, and said to the reporter: “Can I answer that please?”, keen to defend the criticism that is regularly levelled towards his team.

He said: “I think that stats are good. I also think that when you don’t win games, stats become very important to other people. But to us, we try to score one more than our opponent - if it means we win 1-0, great, if it’s 2-1, excellent.

“We’re not obsessed with changing the way we have to play to try to score a lot more goals that can [also] make you lose a lot more games.

“I do listen to what people say – but we’re sitting in a good position, the best [points] we’ve ever had in the Premier League [at this stage]. I believe what we’re doing is good.

“Every teams wants to score goals - there’s no team that will say they want to score less goals and become more solid and rigid. But we attack, we create opportunities - maybe we should finish off more chances. But we’re having a good season, and long may it continue – and we’ll keep doing the right things.”

Watch the full feature with the two Maccas on Palace TV now.