Patrick Vieira says the way his Crystal Palace side conceded in the 1-0 defeat against Manchester City was “stupid”.
The Eagles had managed to shut out the Premier League champions and looked on course to pick up a valuable point but a lack of concentration during a City corner in the 78th minute proved to be their downfall. Jack Grealish took the set piece quickly, playing it short to Ilkay Gundogan whose run towards the near post went untracked.
Michael Olise was the first to react, but the Palace winger brought down the German international inside the box leaving referee Robert Jones with no choice but to award a penalty. Erling Haaland converted the spotkick to secure a win for the visitors at Selhurst Park, with Palace still searching for their first win in 2023 and just four points above the relegation zone in 12th.
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In his post-match interview with Sky Sports, Palace boss Vieira said: “There’s been too many times I’ve been in front of you [the interviewer] and it’s been heartbreaking because we’ve put our body on the line to defend well and to concede a goal like that is stupid and we shouldn’t concede a goal like that.
“There is a lot of frustration of course, not about the foul but about, in the corner and it’s three against one, we shouldn’t be in that situation. Again, it’s a hard way to lose the game.
“This is Manchester City. We defended well. We covered each other quite well, we worked hard. To concede a goal in the corner like that, and when you’re looking at the attitude that we had on that corner, was really poor. This shouldn’t happen at this level. This is something we have to adjust because we let ourselves down conceding a goal like that.
“We can’t switch off. The players on the field worked really hard because you need to work hard to stop City and this is what we did. But the concentration has to be for the 95 minutes.
“We can’t give them a situation because of the quality that they have. Of course I’m disappointed for Michael [Olise] because when you look at the way he worked and the way he managed to take the ball forward, he gave away the penalty but we could stop that before the situation.
“Of course this is as well a learning process for him. He’s a young player and when you keep playing games you make those mistakes and those mistakes are sometimes harsh on him but he will learn from that.”
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