Luke's Football blog

Patrick Vieira got sacked in March after failing to win a game for the club in 2023. People felt it was harsh as it was a hard run of games and they sacked him before the easy run, but here is why he failed and didn’t do as well as he could’ve done.

Average Transfer Window:

After a promising first year in which he got to the semi-finals of a cup competition and a solid mid-table place, he was not backed by the board and manager, with them not fixing the huge problem at right back and getting no backup for Tyrick Mitchell. He never really called the board out or put pressure on them as he thought he had enough bodies, but we could all see that was not the case and it eventually showed.

Bad Game Management:

Vieira didn’t have the best of game management, as it showed in parts of last season, as when going 1-0 up, his team would sit back and let the opponents soak up the pressure, which they would score from, which happened against Arsenal away and Brighton home and away last season, which cost them 3 wins and possibly a European place. This season, however, it didn’t change, as against Brentford and Liverpool, the same thing happened. They went 1-0 up early, but sat back and watched a Liverpool team with 10 men run the game and almost win it, even though Palace had the advantage. Then with the Brentford game, they were on top and Zaha scored a worldie of a goal, but as usual when going 1-0 up, they sat back and conceded a late goal to get a draw when in reality the win was deserved. Even in the Manchester City game, they bottled a 2-0 lead as Vieira wanted to sit back, which proved bad in the end as Haaland got a hatrick in the second half and city eventually won the game 4-2 when they were flying high and cruising. This just showed how tactically adept he was, which leads us onto our next point.

No Tactical Nous:

This was the main reason he got sacked, as his lack of tactical nous got exposed in the league when coming up against good managers. He would always stick with his system even if it weren’t working, and he would also play players in their usual positions, which would lead to an upturn in shocking results. Under Vieira, players like Eze, Olise, and Zaha were playing in their best positions, which is the sole reason for the lack of goals under his reign this season. Eze is now looking amazing, but under Vieira he was playing on the left and was looking average, which would lead to him being dropped and barely getting minutes at the end of his reign. Olise was playing in the centre, which doesn’t help him show off his bewildering technical abilities and would just leave him looking like a fish out of water in between games. Then with Zaha playing as a lone striker, it never worked as he was easily marked out of the game by defenders and wasn’t allowed to do what he’s good at, which is cutting in on the left side, which was the sole reason that he put up the good numbers he did last season, but this year it’s been hard for him as he’s also had a battle with injuries.

Stubborn When Picking Teams:

As I’ve said previously, Vieira rarely changed the team unless he had to, which was another reason why he got sacked as his stubbornness led to players like Schlupp and Ayew, who were bad under his reign, starting every week. They may have had no options, but when Hughes came in, he did more than what Schlupp did the whole season. Schlupp now under Roy is looking like a good player, but under Vieira, he was so lazy on and off the ball and would always lose his marker when it came to goals, and he was still getting chosen even with people like Hughes and Riedewald on the bench ready to show their abilities. Ayew has also had a different change of form as he’s offered more attackingly under Roy, whereas under Vieira he was just a workhorse who offered virtually nothing attackingly, and the only reason he stayed in the side was due to a lack of options off the bench.

Overall, it was deserved in the end, as he just wasn’t tactically good enough to manage at that level. People may use the hard run to defend him, but having no shots on target for three games in a row and only 10 goals away from home all season is not defendable, and now Palace look better under Roy as he’s got the team playing with more freedom and confidence, something Vieira didn’t have with them this season, which goes to show it was the right decision.