Patrick Vieira pleased with progress but wants Palace to be ‘more ruthless’

Patrick Vieira is “quite pleased” with where Crystal Palace are at but has stressed the importance of improvement, including being “more ruthless” in attack.

Having appointed Vieira as boss last summer, the Eagles are currently 13th in the Premier League with 24 points from 22 games, and on Saturday moved into the FA Cup fifth round via a 2-0 home win over Hartlepool.

The former France international was asked at his press conference ahead of Wednesday’s trip to Norwich if he would have taken it if told on the day he was appointed what Palace’s league position, points tally and cup progress would be at this stage.

And he said: “Yes, of course – but at the same time I believe we lost points, we make mistakes and we still need to improve a lot of parts of the games that it might take a little bit longer than I thought.

“Overall, where we are, I am quite pleased with it, but it’s important for us to do better and win more football matches, because playing good football or playing well or creating chances is not enough.

“We need to be more ruthless in front of goal, we need to defend better in our 18-yard box. If we manage to do that, I will be more pleased and more happy.”

Palace’s 3-0 win over Norwich at Selhurst Park on December 28 is their only victory in their last six league outings.

Vieira said: “I think what was really good in that game was we scored at a really important time, and maybe chances we had we scored the goals, and we were really clinical in front of goal.

“That was something that we need to be more consistent. I think we are creating a lot of chances but we don’t score enough.

“When we played them at home, we were clinical and that is something that we have to take for the rest of the season.”

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