Playful Gallagher and Mateta and Ayew’s shooting drills: Inside Crystal Palace’s training ahead of City
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Crystal Palace will host mighty Manchester City in the Premier League and Patrick Vieira’s side will hope to do the double and halt City’s quest for a fourth league title in the last five years.
Vieira’s side are riding high on confidence having beaten Wolves comprehensively at the Molineux to climb into the top half of the Premier League table.
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Hide AdThe Eagles are looking good and the training sessions are getting feisty with players fighting for positions and game time.
Patrick Vieira’s long term goal is to build a team that is stable, exciting and ambitious and the signs are looking good with every passing day.
LondonWorld brings you the inside track of Palace’s preparations for City the team’s training ground in Beckenham.
Training makes Vieira late for press conference
The Crystal Palace boss kept reporters waiting for around 10 minutes for his press conference as training on Thursday dragged, and he wasn’t ready to let the players off the pitch.
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Hide AdVieira was determined that the team met their targets for the day, which meant he had to issue an apology to the media the moment he took his seat.
Since press conferences have returned to being in-person, Vieira has made an effort to strike a nice working relationship with the media who cover the club and it’s shown in his careful yet detailed responses when it comes to answering questions.
Jesurun Rak-Sakyi and Conor Gallagher playing Teqball
Promising youngster Jesurun Rak-Sakyi has been training with the first team, but it was quite interesting to see him playing Teqball with the highly rated Conor Gallagher and holding his own.
Teqball is a combination of football and table tennis, with players trying to keep bouncing the ball on a curved table until one person misses.
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Hide AdRak-Sakyi was the first to run to the Teqball table and challenged Gallager to a match.
The on-loan Chelsea man afforded a smile before engaging him for what was an entertaining encounter, just two future stars doing their thing which was a delight to see.
Crystal Palace have a rare day off on a Friday
One of the reasons Vieira’s press conference was done on a Thursday instead of Friday as usual, was to afford the team an day off today as they are not in action until Monday night.
Vieira likes to give players time to be with their family and normally they get a day off after the weekend game for both sporting and non sporting reasons.
This week Vieira chose it to be a Friday.
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Hide AdThe manager himself confirmed he was giving them time off and was looking forward to having them back on Saturday fresh and ready for the big push against Pep Guardiola’s men.
Mateta and Ayew work on finishing on a different pitch
Assistant manager Osian Roberts was watching closely as the duo of Jean-Philippe Mateta and Jordan Ayew worked on polishing their finishing.
The strikers worked on a drill which ended with both shooting balls into a small net.
They did this for a few minutes seprately from the other players, before Ayew gingerly walked away and vanished into the dressing room.
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Hide AdAyew who has scored just one goal this season will hope that all his work is put to good practice against City on Monday night.
Press served with croissants and hot drinks
It’s not just reporters hanging around at the training ground like the old days.
The press are looked after with the media team switching from providing reporters with cakes coloured with Palace’s red and blue to fresh croissants with proved popular.
Most reporters helped themselves to a hot drink, chatted away and stole a glance at training as Vieira worked his men hard.
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