From the moment Patrick van Aanholt runs into trouble near the left touchline, there’s a vaguely foreboding sense that this might just end badly. As van Aanholt turns on his heel and hurriedly lays the ball back to Mamadou Sakho, Liverpool’s remorseless front six scent blood. Mo Salah leads the hunt. Roberto Firmino tags in. A tentative pass into central midfield is the trigger for Naby Keita to join the press. Then Sadio Mane. Then Jordan Henderson and Andy Robertson. In the blink of an eye, Crystal Palace are being overrun, swamped by waves of red, the sharks circling, the Anfield crowd howling.

This is a story that normally has only one ending, and it’s not with Andros Townsend thumping the ball home in front of a stunned Kop to put Crystal Palace 1-0 up after a brilliant, devastating counter-attack. But that’s exactly what happened at Anfield in January: a sweeping 10-pass move, featuring almost the entire Palace team, with James McArthur and James Tomkins both executing Cruyff turns. It’s one of the great forgotten Premier League goals: lost in the dizzying drama of the finish, in which Liverpool won 4-3, it didn’t even make the shortlist for Goal of the Month. Like much of what takes place over the course of a 380-game season, it simply was, and then to all intents and purposes, it wasn’t.

Part of the reason for this, I think, is that it didn’t really fit into any established pattern of behaviour. Nobody watches football ‘clean’: what we see is conditioned by what we’ve seen before, what we want to see, and what we’ve come to expect. And without wishing to descend into a tiresome reductio ad guardiolum, in which no discussion of English football is complete until someone has mentioned Pep Guardiola, it’s fair to say that if his Manchester City side had scored that goal, the internet would have gone positively pink with delight. The Match of the Day pundits would have been moistening themselves on air.

But this was Crystal Palace, and more specifically Roy Hodgson’s Crystal Palace, and everyone knows what to expect from them. It’s two years this week since Hodgson arrived at Selhurst Park, the boyhood Palace fan who used to watch from the Holmesdale Road terraces as a kid, and now, in his eighth decade, was finally sitting in the dugout. Even now, as Hodgson’s side sit fourth in the table, with a squad of offcuts and journeymen assembled on a relative shoestring, there’s a sense that one of the Premier League’s genuine feel-good stories is hiding in plain sight.

Except at some point, we made the collective decision that Hodgson wasn’t allowed to be a feel-good story. After all, he failed with Liverpool, and he failed with England, and of course any manager who has ever failed must forever be deemed a failure. Quite apart from which, there’s never been a less fashionable time to be a septuagenarian English manager playing organised, conservative football. In a game obsessed with novelty and innovation, new faces and new frontiers, Hodgson offers the very opposite: the known known, the flat back four, a gnarled and grizzled familiarity.

20 players with something to prove this weekend Show all 21 1 /21 20 players with something to prove this weekend 20 players with something to prove this weekend 20 players to watch this weekend Here are the 20 Premier League players under the spotlight this weekend. Getty 20 players with something to prove this weekend Danny Welbeck (Watford) The forward faces his former club, Arsenal, this weekend, in Quique Sánchez Flores’ first game back in charge of Watford. “I’m not going to allow the occasion to get into my head,” Welbeck told Watford’s website ahead of the match. Action Images via Reuters 20 players with something to prove this weekend Teemu Pukki (Norwich City) Norwich striker Teemu Pukki has been named the Premier League Player of the Month for August, having scored five goals in five games for the recently promoted club. He will be hoping to continue his hot streak when the Canaries come up against Premier League champions Manchester City. Getty Images 20 players with something to prove this weekend Marvelous Nakamba (Aston Villa) The midfielder joined Aston Villa from Club Brugge in the summer but has been held back by injury. However, this week manager Dean Smith has said Nakamba has performed well in training and is pushing for his first start. Aston Villa FC via Getty Images 20 players with something to prove this weekend Jesus Vallejo (Wolves) Willy Boly's red card in Wolves' 3-2 loss to Everton means Jesus Vallejo is likely to make his Premier League debut, having joined the club on loan from Real Madrid. Getty Images 20 players with something to prove this weekend Neal Maupay (Brighton & Hove Albion) Brighton's £16m summer signing is still working to consolidate his place in Graham Potter's preferred starting XI. A goal against Burnley on Saturday would certainly help his cause. CameraSport via Getty Images 20 players with something to prove this weekend Lewis Cook (Bournemouth) The midfielder is yet to feature this season as he continues his comeback from knee ligament damage. But he did play sixty minutes for the club in a behind-closed-doors friendly against QPR and could yet make the first-team squad this weekend. AFC Bournemouth via Getty Images 20 players with something to prove this weekend Matty Longstaff (Newcastle United) Newcastle have something of an injury crisis on their hands for their trip to Liverpool, with as many as seven first-team players absent. An injury to Sean Longstaff could meanwhile see his younger brother, Matty, make Steve Bruce's travelling squad. Getty Images 20 players with something to prove this weekend Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg (Southampton) All eyes will be on the 24-year-old this weekend after he was challenged by manager Ralph Hasenhuttl to sign a new Southampton contract. “We are always in contact with his agent and Pierre knows about his important role for this club," the Southampton boss said. Getty Images 20 players with something to prove this weekend Ashley Barnes (Burnley) Ashley Barnes is up against his former club, Brighton, this weekend, having made a strong start to the new season. He has scored four goals in four appearances for Burnley. Getty Images 20 players with something to prove this weekend Willian (Chelsea) Willian is yet to start a competitive match under Frank Lampard but is in line to start against Wolves on Saturday. Chelsea desperate need him to hit the ground running, which will be difficult considering his lack of pre-season. Getty 20 players with something to prove this weekend Lys Mousset (Sheffield United) There are question marks over the fitness of David McGoldrick and Callum Robinson, who were both withdrawn from international duty recently, meaning Lys Mousset could be handed a start. REUTERS 20 players with something to prove this weekend Christian Eriksen (Tottenham Hotspur) Christian Eriksen failed to secure a move away from Spurs ahead of the European transfer deadline and will stay on in north London, although he has yet to sign a new deal with the club. "He never said he was not happy here - he always was," Mauricio Pochettino said this weekend. "I said before the Arsenal game that he was in the right mind - that's why I selected him for that game and I will continue to select him. He has always been such an important player for us and he will continue to be." Getty Images 20 players with something to prove this weekend Juan Mata (Manchester United) Manchester United's injury crisis means that Ole Gunnar Solskjær is likely to turn to the 31-year-old for the visit of Leicester City this weekend. Getty Images 20 players with something to prove this weekend Manuel Lanzini (West Ham United) Manuel Lanzini is set to start for West Ham against Aston Villa - although only rejoined his team-mates on Friday, having undertaken a 10,000-mile round trip to make a 13-minute substitute appearance for Argentina in their 4-0 win against Mexico in Texas on Wednesday. West Ham United FC via Getty Ima 20 players with something to prove this weekend Michael Keane (Everton) Michael Keane is another player who will hope to shrug off the international break when he returns to domestic duty this weekend. With John Stones and Joe Gomez injured, Keane partnered Harry Maguire in England's defence, only to make a horrific individual error as Kosovo opened the scoring in Southampton on Tuesday night. REUTERS 20 players with something to prove this weekend Nicolas Pepe (Arsenal) With Alexandre Lacazette still struggling to regain fitness, Nicolas Pepe is likely to start against Watford. The 24-year-old has made a promising start to his Arsenal career: will he be able to net his first Premier League goal at Vicarage Road? Arsenal FC via Getty Images 20 players with something to prove this weekend Jordan Ayew (Crystal Palace) The 28-year-old was named Crystal Palace's player of the month after scoring twice in three games for the club. He will hope to continue his scoring streak when Palace play Spurs, and given Tottenham's recent form, will surely find himself with ample opportunities on the counter-attack. Getty Images 20 players with something to prove this weekend James Maddison (Manchester United) Manchester United sniffed around James Maddison this summer, ultimately deciding against bidding for the 22-year-old. But the speculation has persisted and all eyes will be on the midfielder at Old Trafford on Saturday afternoon. PA 20 players with something to prove this weekend Kyle Walker (Manchester City) The 29-year-old was left out of Gareth Southgate's recent England squad, with Kieran Trippier and Trent Alexander-Arnold preferred. He needs a strong season if he is to regain his place in the squad ahead of Euro 2020 next summer. Action Images via Reuters 20 players with something to prove this weekend Adrian (Liverpool) Alisson has returned to light training but is unlikely to feature against Newcastle this weekend. Instead, Adrian will retain his place, and has been undertaking extra training sessions during the international break to prepare himself for the fixture. Getty Images

This isn’t the start of some tedious debate about “credit”, that utterly indefinable and thus infinitely arguable concept which appears to have become football’s latest buzzword. Nor is this a parochial plea on behalf on the poor, endangered British manager. Besides, Hodgson always deserved better than to be lumped in with that sort of company anyway: your Hugheses and Pardews and Pulises and Allardyces. From Halmstad to the Hawthorns, Hodgson’s CV always emanated a sort of exotic mystery that few of his contemporaries could match: a taste for adventure, an allergic dislike of comfort, a refusal to conform to type.

The irony is that while Hodgson’s urbane cosmopolitanism was held against him when he first arrived in English football, the wheel has come full circle. Hodgson is one of the dinosaurs now, a product not just of his age and nationality, the sort of football his sides play or the sort of clubs he manages, but of tone. In an era where managers fancy themselves as televangelists, real-life Instagram influencers who aren’t just picking a team but selling a lifestyle, Hodgson stands alone: the cussed realist, the weatherman who simply tells you that it’s going to rain tomorrow, rather than trying to get you to buy into his exciting precipitation vision.

At a charity event this week, Hodgson was asked by the moderator whether he thought Palace could break out of its bottom-half purgatory and challenge the bigger clubs. For the modern managervangelist, this sort of thing is an easy win: a chance to talk about dreams and desire and never putting a ceiling on your ambition. Instead, Hodgson told the truth. “If I’m realistic, I’m not certain we can,” he replied. “Staying in the Premier League is always going to be the be-all and end-all for us: a bit of suffering. There's not going to be rainbows and blue skies and rose-coloured spectacles. There’s going to be plenty of fighting and heartache along the way.”

This, above all, is probably what’s going to get Hodgson the sack at some point. But for now, things are modestly looking up. Two years after taking over a club bottom of the table, Hodgson has finished 11th and 12th, beaten five of the Big Six, won at the Etihad, the Emirates and Old Trafford, given Liverpool the scare of their lives. With the caveat that calendar-year tables are silly and meaningless and Definitely Not A Thing, Palace nonetheless sit third in a theoretical 2019 version, ahead of Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham, their opponents on Saturday.

Meanwhile, despite losing Aaron Wan-Bissaka in the summer, spending just £6 million on reinforcements and barely possessing a striker worthy of the name, Palace are still capable of springing a surprise. It was Hodgson who was instrumental in recasting Townsend and Wilfried Zaha as a slaloming front two, a move that has seen Zaha score more goals in this last two seasons than in the previous six combined. Vicente Guaita in goal has become an increasingly important springboard. Their centre-halves may not overlap like Sheffield United’s - indeed, you suspect that such a tactic would literally kill Gary Cahill - but they turn up, hold the line, win their headers and do their jobs.

Hodgson has quietly done a tremendous job with Palace (Getty)