Patrick Vieira makes Ebere Eze assertion and compares managing Newcastle ace Allan Saint-Maximin

Patrick Vieira feels that Ebere Eze is now fully fit and ready to tackle Crystal Palace’s final seven Premier League fixtures with more game time.

The 23-year-old midfielder suffered a season-ending Achilles injury during training last May that caused him to miss the start of the new campaign under Vieira. But - after first featuring for the club’s Under-23s against Blackburn and Chelsea - he made his return to the first team off the bench in November’s 2-1 home defeat to Aston Villa.

Since then, Vieira has managed Eze’s game time carefully. His first league start didn't come until two months after the Villa game away at Brighton in January and he's been used sparingly in the top flight since, being an unused substitute for all five games of Palace's unbeaten league run from the end of February and into early April. In total, he’s only seen a total of 170 minutes of action in the Premier League so far this season. The majority of his game time has instead come during Palace’s FA Cup run.

Eze started the third-round win at Millwall in January and played for an hour before then getting 70 minutes in the wins against Hartlepool in the fourth round and Everton in the quarter-finals. Against Chelsea at Wembley on Sunday - with Conor Gallagher ineligible to play against his parent club - Eze completed 90 minutes for the first team for the first time in 11 months and drew praise from his manager for his performance in the 2-0 defeat.

“This is something he has been waiting for a while for - to play 90 minutes,” said Vieira ahead of Palace’s midweek trip to Newcastle. “Now he’s had a couple of months of training every day, he’s been playing a couple of minutes and is now fully fit to look for these 90-minute games. The more