Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson says the club will prioritise cover for injured midfielder Cheick Doucoure in the January transfer window.

Mali international Doucoure ruptured an Achilles tendon in last week’s Premier League defeat at Luton and could be out for the rest of the season.

Fellow midfielder Ebere Eze sustained an ankle injury in the same match and Hodgson told a press conference he will push for reinforcements.

He told a press conference: “That is a question for the club, of course, for (chairman) Steve Parish and (sporting director) Dougie Freeman, first of all.

“But there’s no doubt that they are on my side in that respect as well, in the sense that we do think we could do with some replacements and reinforcements in certain positions in the team.

“And, of course, now with the (Doucoure) injury that’s befallen us, that central-midfield position becomes a priority for us.”

Palace head to West Ham on Sunday with back-to-back league defeats to Everton and Luton leaving them 15th in the table.

Hodgson’s side have collected just four points from their last six matches and on reflection the former England boss did not pull his punches.

“It’s not very good, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “One win in six says it all. We started well, but one win in six…

“It’s so easy to go from feeling that things are going very well for you to suddenly realising, looking at the table and the points that we are gleaning from matches, it is not very good at all.”

Doucoure and Eze have joined goalkeeper Dean Henderson (thigh), winger Jesurun Rak-Sakyi (hamstring) and defender Rob Holding (ankle) in the treatment room before the hectic Christmas fixture schedule.

Palace’s seven fixtures in December include games against Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea.

Hodgson added: “The bottom line is that to stay in this league, you need to start winning games and with a very difficult fixture list in front of us in December, we’ve got to hunker down and accept that this is going to be a tough battle for us.

“We’ve got to start thinking very carefully about what we can do in each game to get something from the game to keep us in a reasonable position in the league.”