Squad Numbers

Nine years on from their last FA Cup final, Crystal Palace will face a date with destiny once again in May, as they will take on the juggernauts of Manchester City for a chance to write their name in football folklore. For Man City it would be their 8th FA Cup trophy, for Palace it would be their first major trophy ever. I get chills just thinking about it now, half of Wembley will be rocking come the 17th, and whatever the outcome, it will be an unforgettable day for Crystal Palace Football Club.

Palace deserve to be in this position, despite their run to the final not being the most challenging: Stockport, Doncaster, Milwall, Fulham and then Aston Villa, they have beaten everyone put in front of them and we have seen countless times in this competition that a slip up is very easy to fall victim to (nods to Liverpool fans). Palace have been impressive throughout the competition, but it was the victory versus Aston Villa on Saturday which was by far their best performance of not only the FA Cup, but in all competitions this season, and possibly under Oliver Glasner so far.

Glasner came in to the game unbeaten against Emery in the four occasions that they had met previously, including a 4-1 victory at Selhurst Park, that game could easily have gone the other way though, with Villa having many chances and not converting them, so there was some apprehension going in to Saturday, however, what happened was a complete annihilation and humiliation of Emery’s team.

Palace set up in their familiar 3-4-2-1 formation, and got in to Villa from the very start, whilst it wasn’t necessarily a high press, and Villa had the majority of possession, Palace were never passive, they allowed Villa to have the ball in non dangerous areas, and then snapped in to them whenever they tried to play forward. Emery set up his team to overload Palace in the midfield, picking three central attacking midfielders to play in behind Ollie Watkins (John Mcginn, Marco Asensio and Morgan Rogers). The idea of this was for the Villa attackers to give Palace’s wingbacks a headache over who to track, if they tracked the inside attacker there would be acres of space for Villa’s fullbacks to drive in too, most of Villa’s play came down their left hand side, where Luca Digne could deliver dangerous crosses with the immense quality he possesses.

This did not work though, as Palace defended in an extremely compact shape, with the two attackers in behind Mateta (Eze and Sarr) locking on to each of the Villa centre backs and simultaneously blocking passing lanes into Villa’s holding midfielders. Palace’s two central midfielders (Wharton and Kamada) were aggressive in stepping up in front of Villa’s holders to stop any passes going into them. Then, one of Palace’s centre backs would step up on to one of Villa’s three attackers, depending which side of the pitch the play was on. All of this allowed Palace’s wingbacks to press high on to Villa’s fullbacks, pinning them back and nullifying their attacking threat. So at this point, Villa can’t play through Palace, or around them, so they were unable to create clear cut opportunities, shown by the fact that of Villa’s 16 shots throughout the game, only 5 were on target and 0 were classed as “big chances”.

This is perfectly illustrated by Palace’s first goal:

You can see Digne the Villa left back in possession, not as far forward as Emery would have wanted him to be, Palace have made the pitch as narrow as possible, so Digne’s only option was to play backwards. Munoz the Palace right wingback is able to step up on to Digne, allowing Sarr to stay more central, making it even more difficult for Villa to play.

We then go on to the next image:

Digne has played the ball back to Pau Torres, a player usually so comfortable in possession, but in this instance he looks like a deer in the headlights. He can’t play it back to Digne as Munoz would intercept the pass, he can’t play in to Tielemans as Wharton is breathing down his neck, and any sideways pass would leave his defensive partner Konsa in all sorts of knots with Mateta gallivanting after him. Torres resorts to playing it long towards Mcginn, but as we saw in the previous image, Richards was all over the Scotsmen, so that would have resulted in Palace regaining possession even if the pass made it their. In reality, it didn’t, Sarr intercepted the pass, cut inside, and then Ebere Eze did Ebere Eze things.

Palace completely outclassed Villa, but things could have turned. Palace won a penalty early in the second half, yet Mateta squandered the chance to make it 2-0, Villa then went up the other end and nearly equalised. It was reminiscent of the recent humbling defeats at Manchester City and Newcastle. Those games would have no doubt played on the minds of the Palace players, making it all the more impressive that they didn’t crumble and continued to put Villa to the sword. It is this resilience which Palace under Glasner are built on, and will stand them in good stead during the final.

Individually, Palace were superb, to a man. Dean Henderson made multiple match crucial saves, Chris Richards dealt with Villa’s plan to overload down Palace’s right hand side incredibly, Maxence Lacroix made four interceptions, more than any other player on the pitch, Marc Guehi was, well, Marc Guehi, Tyrick Mitchell was booked early on but played the remainder of the game with no burden on his shoulders, Daichi Kamada had his best performance in a Palace shirt, Adam Wharton made Thomas Tuchel look like a fool, Ebere Eze produced a moment of magic that only he could, Ismailla Sarr was man of the match, scoring two and assisting the other, whilst Jean-Phillipe Mateta furthered the theory that he may indeed be a reincarnation (I mean the penalty misses as well as all the other more desireable qualities). However, it was the fact that they were such a cohesive team which allowed them to perform as they did. They had a plan, they executed it to perfection, that is what would have pleased Oliver Glasner the most, the winning is great, but the way they did it will give him hope that they can go on to replicate this success in the final. Palace have had big wins before under Glasner, none have been in his image quite as much as this one though.

From start to finish it was a masterclass. The Oliver Glasner Masterclass™.