Patrick Vieira explains Crystal Palace's Riyad Mahrez tactic to stop Man City scoring

Patrick Vieira was quite happy for Manchester City to give the ball to Jack Grealish and Riyad Mahrez as he guided Crystal Palace to a second clean sheet against the Blues this season.

City were beaten at the Etihad earlier in the campaign by Palace, and were frustrated on Monday night as Vieira's side earned a deserved point in a 0-0 draw. Palace become only the second side to stop City from scoring against a side in a season since Pep Guardiola's arrival, and Vieira explained his tactics after the game.

With 76 per cent possession, City's game-plan appeared to be to send long balls to Mahrez or Grealish, but they struggled to make the most of those opportunities and Palace were brilliant defensively in response. Vieira said he expected City to have the majority of possession, and praised his side for limiting the space available to the Blues when they had the ball.

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"You have to be ready, they'll have possession," he told Sky Sports.

"It was a team effort, both games we concede a lot of chance. Our keeper did a good game, our performance as a team was really good. When you play against players of their quality, you need a bit of luck. In both games there were times we were lucky. You need quality as well and we deserve it."

Going into detail of the tactics required to stop City for 180 minutes, Vieira said crowding the centre of the pitch, pressing high with Conor Gallagher, and always staying compact was the key to their two clean sheets.

He said: "Conor is full of energy and he loves defending going forward. We wanted to use his energy and positiveness to close down.

"He has a lot of intensity, he was really strong, won a couple