Jordan Ayew discusses Vieira’s impact and strategy ahead of Brighton

Patrick Vieira is a football idol for thousands of fans. His talent inspired a whole generation of fellow midfielders.

But it wasn’t just young midfielders who looked up to Vieira; Palace striker Jordan Ayew expressed his respect for the Frenchman as well.

“It’s great to see [someone] I looked up to when I was a child today managing me,” Ayew told Premier League Productions. “I never thought that would happen, I never dreamt of that,”

“It’s a different approach – attacking. He wants us to defend together, attack together. There is a lot of intensity as well. It’s positive, it’s positive and we’re doing well. We just need to keep working, have belief in ourselves and we’ll do better and better,” he added.

“He wants to win every game because he’s a winner. His winning mentality is transferring to us. Everyone is pushing and everyone wants to do well and everyone wants to give his best for the team,”

Crystal Palace have an excellent opportunity to demonstrate their progress when they face Brighton & Hove Albion in an evening Selhurst Park game.

With his own piece of rivalry history set to be made at the Amex in February 2020, Ayew looks ahead to the game:

“We saw it against Tottenham: the stadium was really, really bouncing. We want that to be the case for every game. The game on Monday we will do our best for the stadium to be bouncing like that,”