We should be talking about Crystal Palace more often than we do, considering they’ve lost just twice this young Premier League season.
In our defense, Saturday’s 2-0 win over Manchester City was just their second win, a half-dozen ties keeping Patrick Vieira’s win from sitting any higher than 13th in his first Premier League season as manager.
Palace led 1-0 on a Wilfried Zaha goal when Zaha drew a red card out of Aymeric Laporte. Clear-cut? Not really, but the Ivorian was a first-half force in making sure that Vieira’s taken four-of-six points away to his former teams: Arsenal and Man City.
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“He knows what he is talking about and we have all seen him do it,” Zaha said of Vieira, one of the best players in Premier League history. “It’s surreal because he was an amazing player. Every player is buying into it and slowly the results will come.”
The Eagles were good money for their win, even if City still controlled the proceedings once down a man.
Palace sealed the win late through Conor Gallagher, as the Eagles both snapped a five-match winless run and grew their unbeaten streak to five.
Draws, you know?
“It was about getting in their faces and not letting them play.,” Zaha said. “We know how good they are, we wanted to show them what we could do. ... I feel like we have had a threat but the difference now is that we keep the ball from the back and build and make our chances. We are exploiting our talent.”
Vieira tried to downplay the win but couldn’t help but issue a lot of praise for Zaha and his teammates.
“You have to defend well and we did it,” Vieira said. “You have to take your chances and we did it and you need a bit of luck because of the quality of their players. When you have those three aspects you have more chance but I am really proud of the way we fought.”
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“When Wilf is like that, taking his chances and working really hard.. he is somebody who is really strong on one versus one. His personality, his character he is a winner. Today he worked really hard and this is what I expect and want from him.”
