Thomas Tuchel and his Chelsea side will be hoping that three is their magic number this year as the Blues look to book themselves into the FA Cup final for a third consecutive season. Both Frank Lampard and the German head coach guided their team to Wembley, but missed out to both Arsenal and Leicester in 2019/20 and 2020/21 respectively.
They will have another chance to put that right this year though, with Liverpool awaiting the winner of the second semi-final. To get there though, Tuchel will have to overcome Patrick Vieira’s Crystal Palace.
That’s no easy task, with the Eagles taking points off of the likes of Manchester City in the Premier League this season. This was something that was addressed by the Chelsea coach in his pre-match press conference as he said: “The constant level on which they are playing, high level of energy, commitment. They are playing throughout the season in the same way. It is a big belief, a real team effort, very close to the coach. They are calming the club down, calming the situation down, which was not easy with so many players leaving before the season.
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“He's [Vieira] done a fantastic job, created a very energetic team full of individual quality and very, very dangerous counter-attacking team. A committed group, very tough to play against in the league and will be a tough one.”
It’s that energy and the frantic nature of the Eagles that has made them so tough to deal with this season. However, the loss of Conor Gallagher, who is on loan from Chelsea but can’t play against his parent club, may have a huge impact on the style due to his contributions.
Despite this, Vieira already outlined back in February, when he was also without the midfielder, how he plans to overcome Chelsea, saying: “We have to play with rhythm, we have to be aggressive, we need to have all those ingredients to give them problems. We know we are capable of doing it. We have to play with excitement because the fans will be up for it. We have to be ready, we have to play well.”
This was only further backed up in his most recent pre-match press conference, where he claimed he “knew” what was to come from the Blues in his pre-match press conference. He said: “We know what to expect about Chelsea, we know the team and we know the individual talent they have. We’ve prepared well and we have to give the best performance.
“We’ve played in the league recently and lost 1-0 but we gave them a hard game and this is the same kind of approach that we want. We want to make it difficult for them.”
Whether they can cause as many problems as before remains to be seen, however Tuchel and his men will have to be on top of their game from the very beginning, or risk being down and out early into the game.
