Patrick Vieira believes Aston Villa have enough quality to challenge for European football this season. Ahead of Villa’s trip to Selhurst Park this Saturday, the Palace boss has lavished praise on his counterpart Steven Gerrard as the midfield icons are set to pit their wits against each other on the touchline for a third time. Gerrard is unbeaten against Vieira after two contests last season, and the Frenchman has been impressed by the Liverpool legend’s start to life in Premier League management.
Patrick Vieira said: “I think if you know the player, I think as a manager he has the same kind of approach to the game. He is really into the details and I think his team reflect a little bit how he was as a player and how he is as a person. So I think he did a really good job with Villa, it’s a really aggressive team. I believe that there is this aggressivity and compactness that makes the opposition team really difficult to move the ball around and when you look at their organisation, they have a really clear idea about how they want to play the game and that’s a credit to Steven.”
Palace have opened their new campaign with a defeat and a draw, but came out of the ties against Arsenal and Liverpool with credit. After being defeated 2-0 by Mikel Arteta’s Gunners, Palace took a point away from Anfield on Monday night – and on another day they could have snatched all three after Wilfried Zaha put them ahead in the first half. When asked how crucial it is to get their first win this weekend,
Patrick Vieira said: “Really important, of course. We need to turn those good performances into a win and the game against Villa will be as difficult as the Arsenal game because Villa’s squad is strong enough to qualify for European competition so it will be another tough challenge for us, so we have to be ready. We have to face the difficulties and try to perform as best as we can. Against Arsenal we had good performances, more in the second half in the first half so this time we will try to be our best from the first minute and score the chances we are going to create, because we have quality to create chances.”
Patrick Vieira has picked out the key weaknesses Crystal Palace need to iron out to grab their first Premier League win of the season. If Palace are going to match Villa’s number of wins on Saturday, Vieira says his side need to cut out costly mistakes.
Patrick Vieira said: “The two games we played, the performances were positive. We still have a long way to go. When you analyse thegame properly we’re still making mistakes that cost us goals. On the other side we created enough chances to score more than we did. The performances are good, yes, but we still need to improve if we want to win football matches. If we want to win football matches we have to be more consistent. We concede goals we could avoid by paying more attention and being more aggressive. On the other side we created more chances to be more clinical. On both sides of the game we can improve and we need to improve as soon as possible if we want to win football matches.”
Palace have no fresh injury concerns from Monday night’s draw at Liverpool but Nathan Ferguson, Jack Butland, James Tomkins and James McArthur remain unavailable.
