“[Hughes] is not going to be involved tomorrow, he is still not feeling well,” Vieira said at his pre-match press conference. “It is the same for Macca, both of them are not possible. Everyone else is OK.
“The mood in the squad is the same: there is a lot of determination. What I mean is that we felt, after the game [against Manchester City] that we defended well as a team, but going forward we didn’t play as we were planning and as we wanted to. We know this is a side of the game we want to improve if we want to win games.
“You can always read the stats in a way that suits you. What is clear is that we are not scoring enough goals. That is a fact. We have to play better and create more chances.
“It is about working a lot in the last third, about having people inside the box, about the quality of our passing. It’s about changing our mindset to be more ruthless in front of goal.”
Palace came from behind to draw with Brighton when the two sides met just a month ago, and Vieira expects a similarly tight encounter on the south coast.
“Every game is important, but of course this is the special one because it is a derby,” he said. “We know how much it means to the football club and the fans.
“But again, it’s about concentrating on the way we want to play, how we can be really good defensively and at the same time hurt them when we have the ability to do so. We have to play, focus and concentrate on ourselves and try to score those goals to win games.
“Against them it was really challenging when we played them at home. They have a structure that allows them to have an extra player in the midfield. We have to defend well, be well organised and disciplined.
“We need those ingredients that we had against Manchester City and to improve the offensive side.”
