Crystal Palace’s perfect possession at Wolves – Patrick Vieira’s post-match reaction

The Eagles started brightly at Molineux and took an early lead through Jean-Philippe Mateta in the 19th minute.

Conor Gallagher played an exquisite pass through the Wolves defence for Wilfried Zaha.

The Ivorian squared the ball back to Mateta and, at the second attempt and with the goal at his mercy, the Frenchman tapped the ball into the empty net to score his third Premier League goal of the season.

Palace doubled their lead in the 34th minute when Wilfried Zaha smashed a powerful penalty passed Jose Sa to score his ninth of the season.

The Eagles had chances in the second half to get the third – Gallagher forcing Sa into a save and Zaha hitting the bar from an offside position.

The win took Palace into the top 10 of the Premier League.

“It was a really good performance – I loved every single part of the game,” said Vieira. “We played really well, especially in the first half. In the second half, when we were a little bit tired, we showed a different attribute to our game.

“We defended well when we needed to. Overall, it was a really good team performance.

“The first half was one of the best [performances of the season]. But not everything is perfect because when you create so many chances, you want to take them, and we didn’t.

“This is something that we have to keep in our minds. When we were in a good period, we managed to score those goals, that was really positive, but we created enough chances to score more.”

Wolves had only conceded 21 goals in 26 games in the top-flight this season before kick off.

“This is why this performance made me really pleased,” said Vieira when asked whether he was surprised at the ease of the Eagles taking the early advantage.

“We knew how difficult it was going to be to create chances. Today, we had the perfect game in possession – created a lot of chances and managed to score two goals against a side that doesn’t give a lot away.”