Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson has claimed that the club will need more than "a wave of the magic wand" to climb off the foot of the Premier League table.
The Eagles sit 20th in the standings with five points from their opening 12 games this season, a run which included seven consecutive defeats without scoring.
Frank de Boer lasted just four games before being sacked and his replacement, appointed on September 12, is optimistic that "lady luck" will be on Palace's side.
"We've got five points from the last five games, if we'd have had 12 points from 12 games we wouldn't be quite disappointed as we are," Hodgson told Sky Sports News.
"We are fighting the lost cause in the sense of it being a lost cause that we can't get it back from those first seven games when we took no points and scored no goals. We've always been aware in the squad that it's going to take more than just a wave of the magic wand to put that right.
"We're fully aware we've got to continue at least in the same vein as we've done in the last five games and hope lady luck will be a little bit kinder to us than perhaps it's been in several of these last five matches."
Up next for Palace is a home game against Stoke City on Saturday.
Giuseppe Labellarte
