Roy Hodgson is happy Crystal Palace's last meeting with Everton resulted in a change of the way handball is interpreted in the Premier League, but would have preferred the points.

The Toffees secured a 2-1 win at Selhurst Park on September 26 following a Richarlison spot-kick which was awarded by referee Kevin Friend after Joel Ward was penalised for handling Lucas Digne's header in the penalty area.

At the time Hodgson labelled the decision nonsense and after a weekend of contentious decisions, it was eventually decided a new interpretation would be followed for offences where the arm is below shoulder level and with the player's ability to react taken into account.

Palace face Everton in the return meeting on Monday at Goodison Park and the Eagles boss is expecting another tough encounter.

Hodgson said: "We actually performed well against them in the home game, we lost to a very controversial penalty which actually ended up changing the handball interpretation that I am happy about.

"But it didn't do us much good because we didn't get the points, or the point, we might have got had we not had to suffer from the handball interpretation that was rife at the time.

"We know any time we go up to Everton we will face a very difficult game, they are a good team and they are very well managed and coached.

"Their recruitment has been very good, the players they have brought in have made them much stronger.

"All we can do is make certain we prepare for the game as best we can and make certain we believe in ourselves and have faith that if we play well enough, we can get the result we would like there."

Victory over West Brom three weeks ago moved Palace onto 37 points, which has been enough to secure safety in each of the last four campaigns.

Long-serving manager Hodgson remains cautious about the battle against relegation and insists their current total is not enough.

He is hopeful the south Londoners can end the season strongly during their remaining nine fixtures and potentially secure a best-ever finish under his stewardship of 10th.

"The realistic positions for us are somewhere between 14th and 10th, I suppose and I am hoping we will achieve that, but there is still a lot of work to do if we are going to do it," Hodgson insisted.

"There can never be a question of we are safe now and we can relax and take it easy, that is never an option.

"Certainly we can't do that because 37 points is a good total after 29 games and we are proud of that, but it is still nowhere near enough."