Patrick Vieira has explained his one change for Crystal Palace’s away game with Southampton, as he names Jeffrey Schlupp in the starting XI with Wilfried Zaha on the bench.
The manager said pre-match that Zaha has been rested after he “received a lot of kicks” against Leeds United last time out. He explained: “Wilfried is an important player for us, of course. It took time a bit for him to recover from all the kicks he received against Leeds.
“It takes time to recover, but he’s on the bench and will be ready to come on.”
Turning his attention to the wider game, Vieira gave his view on the two teams’ approaches, and what he has asked of Palace today.
“This is two teams who try to play high on the field and try to put pressure on the opposition team, and try to move the ball as high as they can,” he said. “I believe it will be a good game of football today.
“I think against Leeds we had a really good performance. Of course we didn’t win the game but I was really proud and really happy with the game and the way we finished the game.
“We played with a lot of tempo and we competed really well. So that was the message during the week: it was about competing as best as we can in the last couple of games.”
