Crystal Palace's Wilfried Zaha has accused Huddersfield Town's players of constantly hacking him down during last weekend's Premier League encounter.

And the Eagles talisman claims he was forced off the field with a slight knock late on in his side's 2-0 victory at the John Smith's Stadium because of the Terriers' rough treatment.

The forward was statistically the most fouled player in the top-flight last season, and that trend has continued during the current campaign.

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Zaha is currently the most tackled player in the Premier League with Aaron Mooy , Jonathan Hogg and Christopher Schindler all cautioned for challenges on the 25-year-old during Saturday's encounter.

On Town's heavy-handed treatment, Zaha told the Croydon Advertiser: “To be honest, I was getting hacked down for at least ten minutes straight.

“I felt my knee throbbing and instead of trying to play on it, I thought I might as well come off.

However, Zaha said the attention he receives from opponents is something he is having to deal with – amid claims that he goes down too easily.

“As everyone knows, I am supposed to have a reputation for myself for going down easily so most of the time I don’t get anything,” he added.

“It is hard, because I do get hacked down, but it’s a thing that I have to deal with as I get older and be mature enough to not react.

“I do get annoyed about it, but I just have to cope with it and hope that the referees do give me enough protection in the games.”

Meanwhile, Palace boss Roy Hodgson said he hoped to see more referees take appropriate action to discourage foul play, but refused to be critical of Town's players.

“I am not going to go down that route,” Roy Hodgson said. “The referee [Mike Dean] certainly gave him [Zaha] the protection he could give, in giving fouls and free kicks against players when they committed them, and yellow cards.

“And there were challenges and fouls that we made that were pretty robust to say the least and led to a couple of yellow cards, so I won’t be whining about that.”