Crystal Palace manager Vieira excited by a week that could bring huge rewards
Patrick Vieira reiterated that it is a “big week” for Crystal Palace after holding Premier League champions Manchester City to a 0-0 draw last night – and with an FA Cup quarter-final tie against Everton to come on Sunday.
The Eagles had their chances in the first half with Michael Olise, Wilfried Zaha and Jean-Philippe Mateta placing shots wide of Ederson’s goal, but City were the dominant force.
Pep Guardiola’s side hit the post twice, recorded 18 shots at goal and had more than 70 per cent possession. But the Eagles remained resolute in picking up a point.
Palace are only one game away from securing a semi-final clash at Wembley, having defeated Millwall, Hartlepool and Stoke en route to the quarter-finals.
“It’s a big week for us. When you’re looking at the result that we had in the last couple of games, it has been really positive,” said Vieira, with the Eagles currently unbeaten in their previous five outings in all competitions.
“The FA Cup will be a massive, massive game for us. We want to go to the next round, we want to go to the semi-final, and with the support that we had at home so far, it will be really exciting for us.”
The South Londoners are the only team this season to have recorded back-to-back clean sheets against the Citizens.
“It’s a really good statistic,” said Vieira on picking up the second clean sheet of the season against City.
“When you look at both games that we played against them, we defended well as a team – our team performance was excellent.
“When you play against those kinds of teams and players, you need to be lucky, and we forced that luck to be on our side. I’m really pleased with the team’s performance today.
“The difference between the two games was that when we created a couple of chances and situations, we didn’t take them.”
22-year-old Chelsea loanee Conor Gallagher ran 12.5km during the 90 minutes at Selhurst Park, completed five tackles and made three blocks.
“Him, Cheikhou [Kouyate] and Jeff [Schlupp], the three midfielders might need a couple more days off than everybody else because they ran a lot.
“Sometimes you have the feeling that you can’t get there, but they didn’t give up, which is a really good sign for us.
“Today, we showed that, as a team, we are improving. One of the challenges was to accept that we were not going to have possession at times, so we were going to have to work hard to get the ball back.
“If we manage to understand that and be consistent, we will improve, and we will do good things.”
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