The laughable thing is, we don't even have any clear indication that Parish and the Americans even went to Nice. All we have is the surmise of some gobby muppet on Twitter.

Yes, it feels underwhelming. I suspect that's not so much due to Vieira's pedigree as it is because he is so clearly nowhere near our first choice. In truth, he was probably not even on our top 10 list when the season ended. Yet here he is.

With that said, he's done all the right things to prepare himself for our job and really, Cooper or Ismael would have been no more or less of a risk, personal preferences notwithstanding.

In the end, he's got the job and he's qualified to do it. Time will tell whether he succeeds or not. What I would say is that for the first time in a fair while, we have a "figurehead" permanent manager, someone recognised and highly thought of in the game. That doesn't mean he won't fail, but it is a chance for us to forge a new identity.

All-in-all, I'm cautiously optimistic. Vieira strikes me as a much-needed change of pace at Palace and if he's a bit of a dice roll, what were the alternatives at this point? I'm keeping an open mind, will back him and the team, and we'll see where we are in October. Yes, I'm choosing to see the glass as half full rather than half empty but what the alternative to that?

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

Viera is on Bein sports France now and they've just been talking about him taking the Palace job. He didn't say yes but it looked like they all knew about it and were putting him on the spot.

At least if Vieira joins, you'd think Luka wouldn't get away with another season playing like he did in central midfield as first team captain. 4/10 performance on Saturday and PV laces up for some contact training on Monday morning...

In all seriousness, his aura alone would command the respect of the academy players and many of the first team. We've clearly struggled to find someone with the Premier League managerial experience we'd want, so at least Vieira has bounds of playing experience, with coaching experience with the very best in the PL at City. He's a gamble but I don't see him as any more risky than Cooper, Ismail, Lampard or anyone else who was actually on our realistic list at this point.

We have to get going on the squad right now and if this deal means we can ring round the out of contract players we want to keep and get deals done before Thursday, then happy days.

26th January 2010 - Enter Administration
2nd May 2010 - D-Day 1 - Survival at Hillsborough
1st June 2010 - D-Day 2 - Survival at Lloyds
7th June 2010 - CPFC2010 exchange contracts.

I think we've all overlooked the obvious truth...we'll be so short of players in a couple of days that Vieira isn't signing up as manager, he's actually pulling on his boots again on a free...

Have you looked at the BBS as you can add a zero on the end of your figure for every couple of hours.

I really wanted to read some of the opinions of their worthies but the signal to noise ratio is far too low over there