Vieira insists Zaha, Eze and Olise are all capable of defending

Patrick Vieira believes attackers Wilfried Zaha, Ebere Eze and Michael Olise are capable of satisfying his defensive demands allowing him to field them together more often.

For the first time in the Premier League this season, Vieira was able to start the exciting trio together in Crystal Palace’s 1-0 win against Watford.

There were glimpses of them combining as a three and also producing eye-catching moments individually throughout with Zaha scoring the first-half penalty that won the game.

Olise won it after his header, from Eze’s cross, hit the hand of Watford left-back Hassane Kamara.

While there is no doubt about their quality going forward Vieira highlighted the importance of the work that will be required in the other direction if they are to all play together more regularly.

He said: ‘I wanted to do it [start them] more often. Obviously with Ebs’s injuries and Michael’s injuries, we haven’t managed to do it.

‘There is no doubt about the potential that they have. But there is the other side of the game that they need to do. If they manage to do that then, we can think about playing that three more often. If not, it will be really difficult because we need to have the right balance to compete. That is one of the areas we need to improve as well.

‘On the other side, you need to run. I think they can do it, I think they have it in their game.

‘We saw that Wilfried is capable of doing it. Michael needs to improve on that side. Ebs showed today that he is capable of doing it as well. So we have to be consistent on that kind of performance. If they do that, of course, the talent will give me really good options to play those three.’

Following 23 year-old Eze’s arrival in 2020 and Olise’s last summer, Zaha now has