Patrick Vieira says he’d love to keep Wilfried Zaha at Crystal Palace past this season and thinks the winger can still take his game to another level. Vieira was asked in his pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon whether he’d given much thought to whether Zaha would be a Crystal Palace player next season,
Patrick Vieira said: “When you talk about Crystal Palace you talk about Wilfried Zaha. He’s been at this club and he’s been doing fantastically well. And again as a manager, of course, I would love to keep him but he needs to want to be here. This season I think he showed to everybody what this football club means to him because he’s been performing well and scoring goals. I believe that he can still take himself to a different level and help the team to grow.”
Vieira has previously challenged Zaha to score more goals for Palace, saying after Palace’s 2-1 win at Southampton earlier this month that he thought the winger should be hitting 20 goals each season with the number of chances his team create. Glenn Murray was the last player to score more than 20 goals in a season for Palace when he smashed in 31 during the club’s promotion-winning season in 2012/13.
Patrick Vieira said: “He should be higher than that. We bring [in] some players around [him] and that improves Wilfried’s ability to score goals as well. When you create chances [as a team], he will have chances to score those goals. He’s always been scoring goals. If we play the way we played and we create the chances, he will definitely score goals. I believe that he’s got the ability and quality to score around 20 goals, to be honest with you.”
