Palace emerged in determined mood for the second half.
There were more than a few murmurs of discontent among the home supporters after a bizarre moment of indecision in which Tomkins and Guaita each left a cross to the other before Joel Ward came to the rescue. Indeed Villa looked more likely to extend their lead as McGinn curled a sumptuous effort just wide of Vicente Guaita’s far post before Tyrone Mings made a hash of Young’s brilliant free-kick into the penalty area. Missing the industry of the injured James McArthur, Palace struggled to find a response as Zaha and Conor Gallagher were denied space by a compact defence. Perhaps surprisingly Gerrard opted to leave the summer signings Emi Buendía and Danny Ings on the bench and chose Ashley Young and Leon Bailey to support Ollie Watkins. The absence of the outstanding Joachim Anderson from the heart of his defence due to a hamstring injury forced Vieira to hand James Tomkins a first league start of the season, with Michael Olise the other change from Palace’s draw with Burnley last week.
He also paid tribute to the start his old midfield rival has made to life as a Premier League manager whereby Palace began this game three points ahead of their opponents having lost only to Chelsea and Liverpool. Gerrard has spoken of his admiration for Vieira as a player, describing the former Arsenal captain as a “role model” and admitting to have based large parts of his game on the Frenchman. “It’s a fantastic away performance because this is a difficult place to come. “Our first-half performance was excellent and we knew we would have to roll our sleeves up in the second half,” he said.