This article is part of Football FanCast's The Chalkboard series, which provides a tactical insight into teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Towards the end of the first-half at Stamford Bridge last week, Crystal Palace's one and only right-back in Joel Ward punched the turf in frustration as he realised he had suffered an injury.

Speaking about the incident, Roy Hodgson said: "He's injured his groin. He felt a pain in his groin so it's obviously some sort of strain in the groin. It's obviously a massive blow because we don't have other full-backs at the club other than Joel and Patrick and we can ill-afford to lose them."

While Ward's injury has exposed some awful summer work in the transfer market from Palace, the Eagles have been lucky in the respect that their only right-back has been present for every Premier League game so far.

However, there was one game Ward was absent for - the Carabao Cup tie against Colchester.

What did Hodgson do in that game? Well, with no other senior right-back to call upon, the former England manager picked academy prospect Sam Woods to start on the right of defence, and the youngster didn't disappoint.

You may recall that a certain Aaron Wan-Bissaka was handed a chance after an injury to Ward, and while it would be far-fetched to say that Woods is the next one off the production line on the basis of one performance - he certainly did his chances no harm against Colchester.

At the time, we detailed that Woods had showed signs of becoming Ward's understudy with an excellent performance, in which he almost scored a brilliant goal amid what was a confident showing down the right flank.

It remains to be seen just how long Ward will be absent for, although if the former Portsmouth man is missing for a while, Woods has shown what he can do and has also waited patiently for an opportunity such as this one to arise.

The 21-year-old was solid and commanding against Colchester, winning four aerial duels, and there was no evidence to suggest that he would let his teammates down - none whatsoever.

Who knows - if Woods does well on a regular basis, he might be the one making a £50m move to a top six side in a season or two.