Patrick Vieira has had his say on Crystal Palace’s disappointing defeat against Arsenal in the Premier League’s Friday night opener at Selhurst Park.
Despite matching the Gunners in a tense and entertaining first game of the season, it was the visitors who started the brighter. After 20 minutes, Mikel Arteta’s side were in front when Gabriel Martinelli heading in from close range with new signing Oleksandr Zinchenko getting the assist.
Palace started to find their feet later in the first-half and Odsonne Edouard came close to levelling things up when his header forced a save from Aaron Ramsdale. The Gunners goalkeeper was alert again in the second-half, denying Eberechi Eze after a brilliant through ball from Wilfried Zaha.
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Palace continued to put the pressure on but hopes of rescuing a point were crushed when Marc Guehi turned in Bukayo Saka’s driven cross into his own net with five minutes remaining. In the end, Palace’s defeat came down to one simple factor.
“The difference between the two teams is that they scored those goals, and we created two really good chances to score. We were in a really good period in the second-half and we didn’t take our chances,” Vieira told Sky Sports post-match.
“Of course I’m disappointed, because I thought we could score a couple of goals today even though we didn’t create very much, but they took their chances and we didn’t. But football is about trying to score goals. We were playing against a good side. We had chances in both halves and we didn’t take it – in the game you get punished really hard.”
Vieira added: “It is really difficult to control the game when you play against a team that has so much quality technically. They had a really good period in the first 15 to 20 minutes. I think after that we had the ball, we had situations but we didn’t create very much.
“In games like that there is a key moment, and in those key moments we didn’t score that goal to lift the crowd and to build even more that momentum. This is something that we have to work on.”
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