I have mixed feelings. As I’ve said before I don’t think Palace are particularly bad, they’ve been competitive every time I’ve seen them. Their poor run of form is mostly draws and narrow defeats to good teams.
But I also don’t think Vieira is anything special as a manager. He’s ok, but you could probably find someone better.
If it’s a panic move and they get Tony Pulis in then I hate it. But if they’re using the next few months to do a full search for the best possible replacement then it makes a bit more sense.
I think this is all true. In particular, Palace's 0-1 against City isn't looking the worst result after MC scored 13 against decent teams in their next two games, and the other recent results are very much as you described them. Amongst the things that I got wrong recently was predicting that Palace would be way below 12th after their run of tricky fixtures. Well, unless Arsenal put six past them today, they will indeed still be in 12th place, albeit with not a lot of daylight between them and the drop-zone. Now 6-0 could still happen of course, especially post-Vieira. Someone who knows more about these things than me reckoned that after those 0-3 and 0-4 home losses to Fulham and Tottenham, Vieira abandoned the high press and got the team defending deep. To me, especially given how they have approached their recent games, that sounds like modern parlance for parking the bus and hoping to nick something from a set play. Which isn't actually the worst approach when playing against teams who are clearly better than you, and those four draws in the recent sequence of games are now looking very good results indeed.
I wonder whether there had been a falling out between Vieira and the chairman. Apparently PV was disappointed not to have more funds available for the transfer window. To which the chairman would have been perfectly entitled to have pointed out that the manager would have a stronger case if he hadn't wasted money on absolute duds like Edouarde and Mateta. If Hodgson does return, presumably that would only be for the rest of this season. Time will tell whether that's a good call.
Other things I got wrong were writing off Leeds and overstating Wolves' survival credentials. When I cast my eye over the relegation candidates, I did wonder whether Leeds had picked up under their new manager but couldn't really justify that view so I didn't bother saying it. I wish I had now. As for Wolves, a fun fact is that if the teams below them win their games in hand then WW will be in the bottom 3. Admittedly those five teams probably won't win all of their games in hand, otherwise they wouldn't be where they are in the table, but even so. And Wolves must have been genuinely dreadful yesterday. My main concern from a Palace pov is that all the teams below them seem more capable of scoring a few goals than my lot. And that was the case even before their recent run of games. When even Southampton can score 3 (three) against a top 4 side, I get very jealous and I genuinely think that we're in trouble in the run of dog-fights in April and May. Given how many things I got wrong the other day, my best bet is probably to keep predicting that Palace will indeed go down and try and relax.