Crystal Palace boss hoping Edouard’s goal in EFL Cup win boosts confidence levels

Patrick Vieira is hoping that Odsonne Edouard’s first goal of the 2022-23 season will give the Crystal Palace attacker extra belief.

The Eagles progressed in the EFL Cup with a 2-0 victory at Oxford United last night.

Edouard opened the scoring against the U’s in the 71st minute before Luka Milivojevic’s late penalty wrapped up the win.

Palace had exited the competition at the first hurdle in the last four years – without scoring – and needed some of their experienced players to come off the bench to help secure their progression.

Vieira told Palace TV: “We can be really pleased with the job done.

“When you play against lower division teams you sometimes don’t have the right mentality to compete. We make it really difficult for ourselves in the first half, Sam [Johnstone] makes a really good save in an important moment of the game that kept us in the game. We came back in the second half with a better attitude, we played better football and managed to score those two goals.

“In the last couple of games he [Edouard] played in he created situations and chances. Hopefully that goal will give him more confidence and that will be good for the team.

“It’s a competition where we want to do well. The cup games are important for us as a football club, the fans love it and the players love it. We will try and go as far as we can.”