Patrick Vieira has hailed Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Hugo Lloris after his performance against Crystal Palace on Wednesday night.
Tottenham travelled to Selhurst Park in desperate need of a positive result.
A draw at Brentford and defeat to Aston Villa left Antonio Conte needing an improvement against Palace.
Tottenham certainly turned up in South London as four second-half goals handed Conte a 4-0 victory.
Harry Kane’s brace as well as goals from Matt Doherty and Son Heung-min gave Tottenham just what they needed.
Conte will hope that this sparks an improvement in form and that some players can now banish some patchy displays to the past.
Patrick Vieira hails under-fire Tottenham stopper Hugo Lloris
That goes for goalkeeper Lloris too.
Lloris was playing in the World Cup final for France just a few weeks ago but has been coming in for criticism from Tottenham fans for a while now.
Lloris hasn’t been at his best for a while now and some believe that the time to replace him is fast approaching.
Lloris turned 36 last week and Tottenham may need to start thinking about replacing the Frenchman.
A big error against Aston Villa left fans believing that Lloris was a fading force but he turned in a strong display against Palace.
Lloris made four saves, including a particularly impressive stop to deny Jordan Ayew in the first half.
Going the wrong way, Lloris managed to shift his body back to stop Ayew from opening the scoring.
The veteran stopper may be picking up criticism from Tottenham fans but Palace boss Vieira was hugely impressed.
Vieira told the club’s official website that Palace could have been more clinical in the final third but praised Lloris for making ‘important saves’ to keep a clean sheet for Tottenham.
“We didn’t take our chances well enough,” said Vieira. “We had a couple of [possible] passes to put players in a better position to score. I think our final ball in the last third wasn’t clinical enough, and [Hugo] Lloris made some important saves,” he added.
Lloris needs to continue this kind of form moving forward, but even if he does, we think Tottenham will be signing a new goalkeeper soon enough.
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