But it wasn’t just budding midfielders who looked up to Vieira, with Palace forward Jordan Ayew revealing his own admiration for the French manager.
“It’s great to see [someone] I looked up to when I was a child today managing me,” Ayew told Premier League Productions. “I never thought that would happen, I never dreamt of that.
“It’s a different approach - attacking. He wants us to defend together, attack together. There is a lot of intensity as well. It’s positive, it’s positive and we’re doing well. We just need to keep working, have belief in ourselves and we’ll do better and better.
“He wants to win every game because he’s a winner. His winning mentality is transferring to us. Everyone is pushing and everyone wants to do well and everyone wants to give his best for the team.”
Reflecting on a loss to Liverpool, Ayew said: “I think there were a lot of positives, and obviously the negatives are we conceded three set pieces. It’s part of the game. We need to improve, be ready for the next game and do better.”
And this Monday, the Eagles have the perfect chance to show their improvement: facing Brighton & Hove Albion in an evening Selhurst clash.
With his own piece of history in the rivalry coming at the Amex in February 2020, Ayew looked ahead to the game:
“We saw it against Tottenham: the stadium was really, really bouncing. We want that to be the case for every game. The game on Monday we will do our best for the stadium to be bouncing like that.
