Crystal Palace boss Patrick Vieira believes his side left themselves with too much to do in the second half as they fell to a 2-1 defeat against Leicester City.
Ademola Lookman opened the scoring for Leicester after 39 minutes, before Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall doubled their lead just before the break. Wilfried Zaha pulled one back for the visitors after 65 minutes, however, Crystal Palace failed to find a second before the whistle. The defeat leaves Vieira’s men tenth in the table, whereas Leicester climb above them into ninth.
Speaking to BBC Sport, Vieira insisted that his side had taken too much damage in the first half to get anything from the game.
He said: “The damage was done in the first half with the way we entered into the game.
“We gave ourselves too much to climb in the second half. In the second half we put more tempo in our game. We were more aggressive and managed to create situations.
“The difficulties in football is to maintain the discipline and simplicity of working well and hard together. It showed we still have a lot to do to be consistent. In the first half we didn’t play well as a team.
“We played too many balls backwards. We were not brave enough in our build-up. That gave them belief and the momentum was on their side.”
Vieira praises ‘much better’ second half performance
It wasn’t all negative for the Eagles against Leicester.
Vieira still went on to praise his side for how they conducted themselves in the second half of the fixture.
Following the substitutes of James McArthur and Eberechi Eze for Conor Gallagher and Cheikhou Kouyate, Palace forced their way back into the game.
However, the improved display was still not enough to overturn the two goal deficit.
Vieira said: “The second half was more positive. We played more forward and put them more under pressure. Overall we competed better in the second half. It was a much better team I would say in the second half. We played like we wanted to.”
Palace will now turn their focus to next weekend, where they face Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final clash.
READ MORE: Rodgers praises Leicester star who ‘typifies everything we want to be’ after win over Crystal Palace
The post ‘The damage was done’ – Vieira blames slow start as Crystal Palace suffer Leicester loss appeared first on TEAMtalk.
source https://www.teamtalk.com/crystal-palace/vieira-blames-slow-start-leicester-loss
0 Comments