Crystal Palace boss Patrick Vieira has outlined “three ingredients” that have made the squad’s trip to Turkey ideal. Palace have already drawn 0-0 with Brazilian side Botafogo this month and are now gearing up to take on Turkish outfit Trabzonspor today (Wednesday), Italian league leaders Napoli on Sunday, and Spanish side Real Valladolid on December 16. Ahead of those contests, Vieira could not be happier with the setup his squad has in Turkey.
Patrick Vieira said: “It’s a real pleasure to be in Turkey. When you choose a place to go for a training camp there were some questions we needed to ask ourselves. We are really pleased because the quality of the field is really good. The quality of the hotel and facilities has made us really comfortable. The quality of the food has been excellent. When you put in all these three ingredients together it allowed us, especially me as a manager, to be really demanding on the players about their commitment in every day work. Everything has been really good so far. When you look at the programme we have it’s going to be really competitive and I’m looking forward to those two games. Having the break in the middle of the season is new. It is just about programming and giving players the right time off, having them back and trying to be ready for the first game of the [second-half of the] season. It is something as a football club we try to deal with best, we try to deal with the organisation and get the team back to where we were physically before the break.”
