The appointment of Patrick Vieira stirred mixed reactions across the entirety of England after Roy Hodgson announced to step down from the Crystal Palace manager role in May.
With the new manager lacking experience in managing any English side, let alone a top-flight club is buzzing doubts in the fans' ears as the memories of inexperienced coach Frank De Boer lasting only for 5 matches back in 2017 are still fresh.
Those who are rooting for the Arsenal legend to succeed with the club might want to dig a bit deeper if they want to grasp the situation at the club he is going to manage in this season.
Crystal Palace is going through a crisis with their squad management owing to the club's negligence towards rebuilding, somewhat similar to what Spanish giant Barcelona went through in the 2019/20 season.
Upon his arrival, the French manager will have a lot of difficult tasks to settle to keep the club on its feet for the years to come.
For a start, Palace have a rapidly aging squad. Last year, 10 of the 11 oldest starting XI players named in the Premier League were part of former manager Roy Hodgson's team selection.
Their average age across the league campaign was 28.8, which, was the oldest average in the division that season and the club frequently picked starting XIs that exceeded that average.
This in of itself was not a grave problem for Roy Hodgson as the manager's ''safety-first'' approach towards the matches demanded veterans on the pitch to bring out results. The experienced players proved beneficial with their in and out knowledge of the game and their tendency to making fewer mistakes than the younger ones.
Where it did become a problem, was the change of management after the departure of the manager, leaving Patrick Vieira with a squad that lacks youth and won't be able to offer energetic football throughout the 90 minutes in the match.
Eleven first-team players from last season have been released by the club after their contracts expired. The possibility of offering contracts to players like Andros Townsend, Nathaniel Clyne, and Van Anholt, and Mamadou Sakho is also running thinner with the time.
The delay in deciding the player's new contracts, or whether or not the players are interested in playing for the club comes as a consequence of Palace's delay in announcing Patrick Vieira as the new manager of the club after a failed attempt to approaching Lucian Favre and Nuno Espirito Santo.
Going into their 9th successive season in the Premier League, the London club is popular to stay up in the top tier easily. But there is another catch to it.
The best players in Patrick Vieira's squads are in the wrong side of the 30s. With Cristian Benteke, Luka Milivojevic, James Tomkins, Cheikhou Kouyate, James McArthur, and the club's shot-stopper Vicente Guaita are averaging an age of 32 among themselves, which is not actually that big of a problem, but can lead to a disaster if not replaced soon enough.
If we take a look at Crystal Palace's performance last season, in spite of their midfield doing well enough of a job to secure a relatively comfortable survival, they were outrun by other clubs on regular occasions due to their distinct lack of energy and athleticism, leading them to wilt at the end of the matches.
Luka Milivojevic has seen his playing time reduced significantly last season and only called up regularly following an injury crisis in the team. James McArthur has also been offered less playtime which is unlikely to improve under Patrick Vieira now that the midfielder is on his 33rd birthday.
When Roy Hodgson's Crystal Palace faced Leed United last season in February at Elland Road, the difference in energy levels between the two teams was visually very striking.
Another issue with Crystal Palace last season was their injury problems. During the second half of last season, no team had more first-team players injured than Roy Hodgson's side. A problem somehow avoided by the club thanks to the number of players to step up in the squad.
But getting up into the next season, with 11 players released by the club and only two signings secured so far, Palace cannot afford major injury problems with a paper-thin squad. And it is very evident that the injury problems have nothing to do with the aging squad as Eberechi Eze and Nathan Ferguson, two of the youngest players in the squad will miss the start of the next season due to long-term Achilles injuries.
Even if the club decides to sign 3-4 players who have run out of contract this summer, it will still have the smallest squad in the division. So it is evident that more signing will have to be made for the club to survive a rigor of 38 match Premier League season
Just 4 wins in the last 15 games last season represented a fairly sizable drop of form caused by a combination of injuries, fatigue, a lack of quality depth for rotation, and of course, the aging factor.
With Palace going through all that trouble last season, the team will be in huge trouble if last season's fatigue weighs upon them in the current one, and without a strong start to the campaign, Patrick Vieira's team might fall into the possibility of relegation.
When one looks at the first five games of Crystal Palace this season, one can't help but worry for Patrick Vieira's team. Chelsea, Liverpool, West Ham, and Tottenham are fairly brutal fixtures, and teams that like to emphasize high-energy football.
If the fixtures are to follow the script and Crystal palace fails to secure any points out of them, the next fixture against the newly-promoted Brentford side will be crucial for them and the future of the manager as the fans won't want a repeat of Frank De Boer incident.
Patrick Vieira was without a club for the last 7 months after being sacked by French side OCG Nice in December 2020.
The French manager tends to be more pragmatic and tactically versatile, not afraid to make changes in style and formation in the middle of the game should the circumstances demanded it.
The Arsenal legend has a fine reputation when it comes to working with young players. An area where Palace haven't invested much of their faith, hope, and resources in recent years.
In the years that Crystal Palace managed to remain in the Premier League, the club has accumulated a huge wage budget thanks to keeping aging players with salaries in both the starting squad and on the bench, resulting in a lack of room to make huge maneuvers in the squad.
But even though a massive offloading of players can leave the club in huge turmoil, it might give Vieira an opportunity to use the wage budgets effectively on sensible recruitments.
Steve Parish has promised Patrick Vieira proper backing ahead of his first season at Crystal Palace first team in charge reports suggesting that he will equip him with a supposed £15m pound war chest to try and build a full squad capable of competing in the Premier League.
Patrick Vieira's illustrious career as a player and his character should command immediate respect when he walks into the Crystal Palace dressing room and it may help in attracting players to Selhurst Park. It might also be a possibility that Vieira's presence could play a part in trying to solidify Wilfred Zaha's future in the club.
Zaha has been a vital piece of the chessboard for Crystal Palace for years and with the ever-present rumor of the attacker wanting to leave the club ringing more than ever, it is up to Vieira to convince the English forward to stay.
One of the issues that Vieira is likely to face when he takes his first training session at Selhurst Park is how deeply ingrained Roy Hodgson's ideas are at the club.
The former England manager spent four years in south London, turning the Eagles into a capable survival machine capable of surviving in the Premier League. But his style of play demanded absolute discipline, defensive organisation, and very incisive counter-attacks with Palace hanging on to narrow leads.
With Vieira claiming the helm of the club, it is up to him to implement his visions about the club's future style of play and claim authority among the senior players if he has to go far with the club.
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