‘Doncaster Rovers were every bit as good as I thought they might be’ – Roy Hodgson impressed by effort from Grant McCann’s side

Goals from Jeffrey Schlupp and Max Meyer earned Palace a 2-0 win in the fifth round tie at the Keepmoat but Rovers delivered a superb performance to test the Premier League side.

"It was a very tough game," former England boss Hodgson said.

"We had prepared for a tough game. We knew Doncaster Rovers were a good football team and we had seen enough from our research to know that.

"Luckily I was able to really imprint that in the minds of our players and there was never going to be any complacency on our part.

"In fact, Doncaster were every bit as good as I thought they might be, perhaps even slightly better.

"The pitch was a bit of a factor which evened things out and Doncaster probably dealt with how firm and bumpy it was better than we did.

"I thought both teams tried to play good football. There were some good moves from both sides.

"In the end we are delighted to come through on the right side and go into the quarter-finals.

“I said to Grant afterwards in his office that he should be really proud of his team. I don’t think they could have done any more to win the game than they did.”

Hodgson was delighted with the professionalism from his side as they did not take Rovers lightly.

And he said had they done so they would more than likely have come unstuck.

He said: “It would have been easy for a team to come and meet this Doncaster Rovers team without perhaps that gutsy, determined, focused approach we had and could have slipped up.

“Doncaster would have been good enough to win.”