Speaking with the press before City’s visit on Monday, Vieira said of his former club: “We will face I believe one of the best teams in Europe.
“When you play a team like City you have to be 9-10/10 because of the quality of the team. Of course you have some moments that have to go in your favour. You have to force those moments, do what it takes to allow ourselves to win.
“When defending we can’t afford to make mistakes because of the quality of the players they have around – we’ll get punished straight away.”
Palace have shown their ability against Pep Guardiola’s men once already this season, beating the Citizens 2-0 at the Etihad last October.
Reflecting on that display, Vieira explained what worked well and how that can be applied again: “The game we had at the Etihad was a good collective game and we’ll need to create this kind of performance again. We’ll have to be solid, work well and it’s about defending well as a team and at the same time creating those moments to create chances and score goals. We know we are capable of doing that.
“It is the way we work as a team. I think from the front players to the goalkeeper we were really tight and compact and didn’t give City a lot of space. This is a team that manages to score goals and create chances. We’ll have to be at our best and defend well but we have to create chances and it’s important to take them.”
In their last eight games Palace have scooped four wins and four draws from all competitions, taking them up to 10th in the Premier League and through to the FA Cup quarter-final.
Vieira was asked if that uptick in results shows how fast fortune changes in football, and what’s happened to spark it:
“That’s why we’re never too high when things are going well and not too low when we’re not having the results we expect. The improvement for us is to be consistent emotions-wise and believe in what we’re doing and how we try to do things.
“We know we need a couple of wins but the process of playing and way we want to play never changes and has always been the same. We will keep working and improving those details that allow us to win.
“It’s about taking chances when we have a really good period, scoring goals, playing well as a team, managing the difficult periods. All those moments we went through in the last months give us more strength about how to handle a game.”
