Crystal Palace’s Patrick Vieira inspired revolution has turned them into a team to watch

It’s weird and definitely a physical representation of how quickly and rapidly time flies by when one isn’t looking because to imagine a man who retired in 2014, now managing Aston Villa is absurd. But he’s not the only one and that just makes it not as weird when you consider the fact that this is football’s life cycle. The player isn’t the manager until he/she is or they simply disappear off the face of the earth beyond the occasional peak from behind the scenes in the various roles available.

But even then, during Vieira’s pomp as a player in England, the Eagles were undergoing a tumultuous time. They were Premier League regulars, and one of the original founders, but then issues struck them from all over the place and by 1999, they were placed in administration. They eventually made their way back into the fold but once again were placed in administration in the early 2010s.

The Ivorian’s future has been in doubt for a large part of the last five years with links to, quite literally, every club in the world. His comments haven’t helped the case either and yet somehow, he remains one of the few Eagles to consistently hit double figures for goals. That was the situation that Patrick Vieira was walking into and the genuine worry turned into concern at the fact that Palace had appointed an absolute nobody.

The Eagles had gone from the safe, consistently finishing mid-table and avoiding relegation at ease under Roy Hodgson to a future where they knew absolutely nothing about what would happen. Say what you want about the veteran manager but he knew exactly what to do in order to ensure that the Eagles would stay safe. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong in being safe, it’s a human condition to stay as safe as possible, to become a creature of habit because there’s comfort in the known.

Why walk into the dark when you can always traverse the road well-travelled? But there’s also this reckless and completely insane disdain for the normal within human beings, to just throw yourself into a situation you’ve never been before just to see what happens. Now that’s mostly found in teenagers and people enduring mid-life crises or the absolutely insane who jump off cliffs for fun but every now and then it’s found in a football club like Crystal Palace.

The Eagles are, after all, owned by a consortium of really wealthy die-hard fans who want the best for their club and thus in walked Vieira. The Frenchman had a good spell in the MLS, taking New York FC into the playoff semi-final in his first season before doing so consistently during his spell there, but it’s his time with OGC Nice that turned the tide against him. While his first and second seasons were good as they finished seventh and then sixth, it was the third that turned them. 

The Eagles do sit 13th on the league table, have won five games over the last four months and yet there’s a sense that Vieira has done more than just change the team. There’s no denying the fact that their playing style has changed, from the uninspiring but solid team under Roy Hodgson to a dynamic, fluid and progressive style of football under the Frenchman. Not only that, the onus on Wilfried Zaha is no longer as prominent and yet the Ivorian has eleven goals this season.

But he has had help as Conor Gallagher has scored eight, Jean-Philippe Mateta has six, Odsonne Edouard has six, Christian Benteke has four and Michael Olise has four goals and eight assists.  Not only that, Vieira has built it on a base of young, supremely talented players in Olise, Edouard, the returning from an Achilles injury Eberechi Eze, Marc Guehi and Palace youth product Tyrick Mitchell.

In 1872 a team called Crystal Palace played in the semi finals of the first ever FA Cup.



150 years on, we go again 🔴🔵🦅 https://t.co/npWfSa4HG5

— James McCollum (@JimKMcCollum) April 17, 2022

They’re far from favourites, as they face Chelsea and then the winner plays Liverpool in the final, but it has given Crystal Palace fans something to look forward to because they're back at Wembley again for the first time since they lost to Manchester United in the 2016 FA Cup final. Yet, there’s a growing sense of hope and belief around Selhurst Park, for the first time in a really long time, because this Eagles team could very well cause problems to the established norms in England and the top tier.

Could they eventually break into the European spots? There is a vacuum there at the moment and with Arsenal, Tottenham, West Ham, Manchester United and others struggling to fill it, that’s a possibility. It’s a long way down the road for Vieira and his side but the aim, at least from the outside, seems to be to get Palace there with a long-term vision in mind. But there’s that other problem for Vieira and that’s the fact that football is far from fair and definitely not kind to teams trying to build themselves back up again.