On a lovely, soft, spring-like south London afternoon Crystal Palace produced a performance of thrust and refined attacking interplay to surge into an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley, and set up an intriguingly upbeat denouement to their season.
It helped that Palace were pitched against an Everton team that seemed to have no clear idea how they wanted to play, and none of the rage and resilience required to respond once they fell behind. Palace scored twice in each half. By the end the 4-0 defeat looked a little generous.
Afterwards Patrick Vieira could barely stop smiling, delighted by his team’s collective effort. “We went though a difficult 20 minutes and we stuck together and we accepted the fact they were on the top of us, so we decided to wait until we were back into the game. After that we managed the game fantastically well,” he said.
This was the first time Vieira had started his entire hand of attacking players – Patrick’s Pups, age range: 21 to 29 – in the same game. With Eberechi Eze handed a start after a season disrupted by a cruel achilles injury, a front five of Eze, Conor Gallagher, Michael Olise, Wilfried Zaha and Jean-Philippe Mateta sished up a mouthwatering blend of energy and movement.
A team that survived in the top tier by smothering and keeping the centre solid has the weapons to play an entirely different game now.
The third Palace goal on 78 minutes seemed to sum up that fluency, finished off by Zaha after Olise’s shanked shot had hit the post: both men all alone in the Selhurst sunshine as the white Everton shirts stood and watched, and greeted by another barrelling cheer from a basking home crowd.
Manchester City v Liverpool
Chelsea v Crystal Palace
The ties to be played at Wembley on 16/17 April.
The contrast will have been stark for Everton supporters, on a day where their team began with intent but congealed once the day turned against them. Here was an opposition with a clear set of attacking patterns, and with players who seemed utterly delighted to be out there discovering their own deeper gears. So this is what team building looks like.
Selhurst Park had been a breezy, chilly place at kick off, the air thick with flare-smoke, the supersized Cup quarter-final away end already on its feet.
Frank Lampard had re-installed Jordan Pickford after illness and brought in André Gomes, Jonjoe Kenny and Andros Townsend. And Everton did dominate the possession early on.
With a minute gone Michael Keane found himself alone in front of goal but snatched his shot wide. Richarlison, who chose to play here rather than return home after the death of his grandfather, ballooned the ball over the bar from a decent position. For a while Anthony Gordon did Anthony Gordon things, sniping into space and passing accurately, a footballer with a precious kind of optimism about his game.
With 17 minutes gone Townsend left the field with what Lampard confirmed later looked like a serious knee injury. At which point, the game turned completely. First Eze mustered up a shot on the turn after some neat interplay with Olise. Then on 25 minutes Olise produced a lovely, shark-like burst down the right to win a corner. His first kick, viciously whipped in, was palmed over by Pickford. The second, on the same angle but better placed, was flicked into the net by the head of Marc Guéhi.
This was a finish of real skill, not just reading the line of the ball but directing it through a crowd of players. But Everton clearly have a problem with conceding from set pieces. These are basic coaching elements.
For a while Everton were limited to off the cuff breakaway attacks, Gomes and Abdoulaye Doucouré unable to find any rhythm in midfield.
And on 41 minutes it was 2-0. Eze carried the ball forward on the left then nudged the perfect pass on to Zaha. His low cross found Mateta. The finish was low and hard past Pickford, who flopped to the ground but couldn’t get a hand on the ball.
By now Everton looked baffled, frozen, bemused by the apparently unforeseen possibility of going a goal behind, of finding opponents with ideas and energy of their own.
Lampard sent on Dominic Calvert-Lewin for the second half, Demarai Gray having already replaced Townsend in a new-look front three. But part of the beauty of Palace’s high-craft front six is the ability of those players to manoeuvre the ball, to retain possession by being smarter and quicker in their footwork and their passing.
Olise continued to glide infield from the right, eventually drawing a booking for desperate-looking Mason Holgate, who really couldn’t cope with his movement. Gallagher pressed like a dervish. Zaha, who must be having the time of his life right now, looking back at those years when he was The Only Guy, was a source of high-grade menace down the left.
With three minutes to play Will Hughes added a fourth as Palace besieged the Everton goal with an easy, almost sadistic sense of pleasure, smashing the ball past Pickford after Gallagher’s shot had been saved.
“They will all want to play Palace. If Chelsea, City and Liverpool go through we will be the underdogs,” Vieira said afterwards, looking absolutely delighted at the prospect.
