The 26-year-old, who has 24 caps for Serbia, feels far more comfortable playing for Hodgson at Palace than he did at the start of the season under De Boer

Every team has a heartbeat and Luka Milivojevic is fast becoming Crystal Palace’s. Bright as a button and hard as nails, the Serb is the all-action cult hero for Palace in their fight against relegation, scoring six in ten, stepping in strongly when Burnley went for Wilfried Zaha, and always taking responsibility.

With Zaha out for a month after damaging knee ligaments against Newcastle United, Milivojevic has become even more important. A visit to Palace’s training ground finds Roy Hodgson admiring the type of “disciplined”, tactically smart defensive midfielder that native academies still need to nurture. Palace fans “absolutely love him”, in the words of one, with Milivojevic hailed “the definition of an on-pitch general . . . never shirks his responsibilities”.

The man himself