Patrick Vieira wants his Crystal Palace side to take inspiration from Real Madrid’s dramatic comeback win in the Champions League over Paris Saint-Germain for their Premier League with Manchester City on Monday night.
Karim Benzema’s 17-minute hat-trick turned the last-16 clash at the Bernabeu on its head in spectacular fashion on Wednesday evening, knocking PSG out of the Champions League after Kylian Mbappe had put them 2-0 up on aggregate at half-time.
Whatever the likelihood of that happening was, the odds are surely greater for Vieira’s side to beat league leaders City when they play them at Selhurst Park on Monday night, even with the Eagles winning the reverse fixture at the Etihad 2-0 in October.
Only four teams have ever completed a league double over a Pep Guardiola side throughout his managerial career, but despite the enormity of the challenge ahead, Vieira said belief could play a big part in the final result.
“We saw it yesterday in the Champions League - anything can happen in our game of football,” he told reporters in Thursday’s pre-match press conference.
“It’s just about us believing that we can do it, going on the field and knowing how good that team is and just working hard for it.
“Of course, we know that they have really good individuals, we know that they are really strong collectively, we know that they are one of the best teams in Europe. And yes, we will have to perform well to take something from that game.
“We did it away from home and why can’t we do it at home? It will be challenging, it will be difficult, yes. But we will be up for it.”
Palace’s win in Manchester earlier this season saw them take the lead within the first ten minutes via Wilfried Zaha before soaking up wave after wave of City pressure.
The Eagles took their chances when it mattered though, taking advantage of a red card to Aymeric Laporte to tighten the game and snatch a late second from Conor Gallagher to seal the win.
Palace played with a 4-3-3 formation that afternoon but have recently been playing a more defensive 4-2-3-1 in home games that put more bodies in midfield and make the game more compact
Restricting space between the lines is one way to try and stop City’s creative players from leaving too much of a mark on the match, though Vieira said his team will have to suffer regardless of how they set up.
“We will not have as much possession as we would like to and we will have to manage that kind of period of the game,” he added.
“We can’t get frustrated because we may have to spend the majority of the time not having the ball and we have to accept that and we have to manage those kinds of situations. If we manage to do that then we will see what will happen.”
