Eagles boss Patrick Vieira hoping for more transfer business….but happy with incoming activity in window
Patrick Vieira believes Crystal Palace have done “really well” with their transfer business so far.
The Eagles splashed out an initial £18million to sign midfielder Cheick Doucoure from French side Lens.
They brought in goalkeeper Sam Johnstone on a free transfer from West Brom to compete with Vicente Guaita for the number one spot.
While they also reportedly beat Manchester United, AS Monaco and Tottenham Hotspur to the signing of 18-year-old winger Malcolm Ebiowei.
And Palace recently completed the signing of Bayern Munich defender Chris Richards on a five-year deal.
Luke Plange also joined the first team squad after returning from his loan spell with Derby County after the Eagles loaned the young forward back to the Rams for the rest of the season last January.
“We’ve been really consistent about what we want to do and how we want to do things,” said Vieira of Palace’s transfer business after the 4-2 win in the final test of pre-season against Montpellier today.
“We identified some parts of the game we felt we needed to improve.
“We brought in Cheick, Luke and Malcolm – Chris is here as well. As a manager, you are never happy – you always want more.
“We [have] done really well, and the market is still open. We will see.”
The South Londoners had a split pre-season, with only eight members of the first-team squad travelling to Singapore and Australia with Vieira to play Liverpool, Manchester United and Leeds.
The remaining members of the team stayed with assistant manager Osian Roberts and played friendlies against Gillingham and QPR.
“We had a team which travelled a lot and a team which stayed here. It was important to put them together and start to build this togetherness, training together and finding our way of how we want to defend and play,” added Vieira when asked about integrating the two squads back together.
“That always takes time. We still have a lot to catch up but today was a positive step forward. We played some really good football, created chances and scored goals.”
PICTURE: ROB AVIS
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