Crystal Palace 1 Arsenal 3: Gabriel Martinelli and Nicolas Pepe score late to ruin Roy Hodgson’s final home game

ROY HODGSON was given the send-off he deserved as Palace bid a fond farewell to their departing manager.

The 73-year-old former England boss received a guard of honour from both sets of players before kick-off and a standing ovation from the fans at the final whistle.

And how he is going to miss nights like this, with the old ground shaking to the rafters and his team sweating blood to pull off another of those famous fightbacks.

What a pity they weren’t able to give him the victory he wanted to sign off his final match at Selhurst Park in style.

Stoppage time goals from Gabriel Martinelli and Nicolas Pepe were enough to secure all three points for Arsenal and, incredibly, leave Mikel Arteta still dreaming of Europe.

The Gunners are now just one point behind both Spurs and Everton and plotting a dramatic last-day heist.

For while Spurs visit FA Cup winners Leicester and Everton are away to Champions Manchester City on Sunday, Arsenal appear to have a much easier task at home to Brighton.

This hard-fought victory means they have already accumulated more points than they managed last season in spite of all their recent issues.

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Arteta wasn’t even a twinkle in his mother’s eye when Hodgson launched his managerial career with Halmstads 45 years ago.

But the Premier League’s youngest boss is proving to be a quick learner after looking in danger of beating Hodgson to the managerial  exit not so long ago.

Arteta says he cannot wait to get a bit of a summer break while Hodgson will soon have  more time on his hands than he knows what to do with.

But at least he will head into retirement buoyed by the memory of his rousing send-off from the returning supporters.

No club has missed its fans more than Palace this season.

It’s bad enough that there is no longer a giant eagle swooping over the heads of the visiting players and scaring seven bells out of them as they emerge from the tunnel.

But without the slightly sinister presence of the Holmesdale Fanatics recent games at Selhurst have been distinctly lacking in atmosphere.

It doesn’t help when the team has been drifting along in 13th place virtually all year, never in danger of going down nor threatening to break into the top half of the table.

Just making up the numbers.

But the return of 6,500 supporters coupled with Hodgson’s last home game in charge finally gave Palace something to play for.

And no-one had more reason to raise his game than Wilfried Zaha, who clearly had a point to prove to Arsenal.

Unai Emery famously wanted to sign Zaha for the Gunners in 2019 but the club overruled him and forked out a club record £72million for Nicolas Pepe instead.

There are 14 Palace players out of contract this month but unfortunately for Zaha he isn’t one of them.

He is locked into a £130,000-a-week contract which still has another two years to run.

So the best he can hope for this summer is that Palace’s next manager won’t be quite as determined to keep him at Selhurst as Hodgson has been.

But Zaha wasn’t the only local lad keen to impress as ‘Croydon de Bruyne’ Emile Smith Rowe set out to show Palace just what they missed out on when they let him slip through their net.

Arsenal’s young playmaker was pulling all the early strings as his team looked for a fourth consecutive League win for the first time in almost three years.

Pierre-Emerick was inches away from connecting with Calum Chambers’ second minute cross and was later denied by Joel Ward’s crucial last-ditch challenge right in front of goal.

Yet the visitors did not have it all their own way, with Gary Cahill and Christian Benteke both heading narrowly wide for Palace and Jeffrey Schlupp drawing a decent save from Bernd Leno. 

But they were undone by a slick 35th minute move involving Bukayo Saka and Kieran Tierney before Pepe volleyed Arsenal into the lead.

It was a moment to savour for Tierney, who had been booed mercilessly ever since going down from a kick by Cahill right in front of the Holmesdale End.

Palace were clearly not impressed by the Scottish left-back and tempers flared right after that goal  when Tierney was flattened by Benteke’s industrial challenge.

But the beefy striker got his revenge when he powered Palace level with a diving header from Andros Townsend’s 62nd minute free-kick.

Yet just when it looked as though Arsenal had squandered their chances of last-gasp European qualification, substitute Martinelli nipped in to fire them ahead again in the 91st minute.

It was a bitter blow for Palace, who had looked likelier winners up to that point.

And before they had a chance to catch their breath, they were undone again in the fifth minute of stoppage time when Pepe was allowed to cut inside for his 14th goal of the season.