Roy Hodgson does not know if the injury that forced Joshua King out of last night's game between Watford and Crystal Palace is a serious one, but said he felt that it was the right time to give another striker a chance.

King has not scored since the 4-2 defeat away at Leicester City back in November when he converted from the penalty spot, with the Norwegian drawing a blank in all of the following 12 matches.

A knock to his back in training meant that the forward started the match, which ended in a 4-1 defeat for the Hornets, in less-than-ideal circumstances and Hodgson took the opportunity to try Cucho Hernandez for the majority of the second half.

"I don't know, we'll have to see tomorrow," said Hodgson when asked how severe the problem was. "He took a knock in our last training session, unfortunately, so this exacerbated the problem for him.

"But it was the right time to make a change, I thought. Cucho Hernandez has been someone we've had an eye on in training. We of course, Ray and I, don't know him that well. We've not seen that much of him. We've only had a month to work with him in training and we wanted maybe to see what he could do. With Josh perhaps not being 100 per cent in form, it was a good decision, we thought, to take Josh off and give Cucho his chance.

"In the same way we took Tom Cleverley off who'd done well for us but it's the second game in three days. He worked very hard. We thought this was a chance for Edo Kayembe to show what he could do."

The injury could cause King to miss out on a return to Old Trafford where he signed as a youth player back in 2008, with Watford set to face Manchester United away this Saturday.