ROY Hodgson rued the controversial VAR decision that denied his side a first-half goal - but had no complaints with the result.

Palace midfielder Max Meyer had a 15th-minute strike chalked off on a review due to a marginal offside call against Wilfried Zaha.

Eagles boss Hodgson, who felt Meyer could have been awarded a second-half penalty after a challenge by James Ward-Prowse, was initially baffled when Stockley Park intervened.

“When we scored the goal I couldn’t believe it was being checked, (I was thinking) ‘who’s it being checked for?’,” he said. “But then I realised Wilf had been played in.

“It's small margins for these decisions and there is no point debating or lamenting the decision if it hasn’t gone your way, but certainly we could most definitely say we weren’t fortunate in that situation.

"There are people still who believe perhaps it wasn’t even offside. And we were a little bit unlucky on the penalty as well, which we could easily have got.”

Palace, buoyed by a last-gasp Boxing Day win over West Ham, were once again without a host of injured players, but Hodgson was satisfied with a point.

“The last 15 minutes were a lot hairier than I would have liked them to be, and maybe needed to be had we not made that technical mistake,” he said.

“We can’t complain about anything, a point here against a Southampton team in form, with a lot of confidence, I’ve got to be more than satisfied.”