“He’s somebody who when on the field is thinking about the team before himself. He’s a leader and for me it was something that was obvious with not having Luka: Macca would be our vice captain.”
Overall, though, Vieira did not try to sugar-coat Palace’s loss to the Blues, saying: “It was a tough start for us but we have to play them… they will be in the top three teams that can win the Premier League.”
He added insight into his flexible approach, discussing the moment he switched to a back three with two substitutions:
“I’ve been working with the players for six weeks now and we changed a couple of systems, working on defensive systems so players can adapt. When Joachim came on and Christian that gave us more experience on the field and we saw the difference when those two came on the pitch.”
