“We have a couple of games [coming up] and I wanted to see Jeff Schlupp and Eze in the midfield,” he said in his pre-match interview. “I think both of them have been doing really well and I wanted to see how they would be playing together.
“We will need the same type of energy today [as against Aston Villa] to play the same kind of football. We know how challenging the game will be today, and we are ready to compete against them.
“Of course we want to do well. We want to win the game, but first we need to play football.”
In a raucous and passionate atmosphere at Goodison Park, Vieira says cool heads are needed.
“When you look at the last couple of games [Everton] play at home, the support has been behind the team and they play with a lot of tempo in the team,” Vieira said.
“It will be important for us to remain calm, to really focus on the way we want to play, and to focus on the football – it is a game we want to win.”