Crystal Palace boss Patrick Vieira was delighted after their 2-1 defeat of Leeds United.
Palace were put under pressure in the first-half and entered the break at 1-1, but having conceded eight shots and created just one. At full-time they’d managed 13 shots compared with Leeds’ 10, having turned around their performance markedly for the second-half.
Revealing his half-time message, Vieira told Sky Sports: “It was that we of course have the ability to play better in the second-half than we did in the first. We needed to be more in their face and a little more direct. We needed to find our front three for them to hold the ball and to wait for support from the midfielders.
“At times we did it better in the second-half. Obviously they [Leeds] dropped a little bit physically and that allowed us to play more directly but I was really pleased with [the fact] we remained calm. Of course it was tough, it was difficult, but I’m really pleased with the players because they really deserved to win games.
“We wanted of course to play well from the back and the way they were pressing made it really difficult for us. I think in the first half an hour our decision making from the back wasn’t the best and we put ourselves into difficulties. Then we lost confidence and made wrong decisions.”
Sticking on the positives from a hard-fought afternoon, Vieira praised his players for collecting a win after several frustrating draws or defeats.
He said: “All credit to the players because going 1-0 down, fighting back and to compete and get the win, they worked really well and fully deserve it because in the last couple of games we played we didn’t get what we deserve. Today it was a good win for us.
“We just needed a win because when you look at our performances lately we were quite good. The only thing we were missing was a win. Today we didn’t play as well as we did before but we managed to win the game.
“So it’s important for us to find the right balance. When we didn’t win we didn’t throw away everything we’ve been doing in the last couple of months. We won today but are still going to try to improve as a team.
“It’s a good win, we needed that win. It wasn’t really pretty but we need some different ingredients from our last couple of games. Today we worked hard, we pulled up our sleeves and we competed. At the end we scored that goal and it’s good for us.”
