Sublime Palace dismantle Villa for FA Cup final slot

This is what the FA Cup is supposed to be about. Crystal Palace are now one game away from history, after Eberechi Eze emphasised how he is the present, and maybe the future. You could say the same about Adam Wharton.

- MIGUEL DELANEY

The first won this semi-final against Aston Villa, the other ran it. Ismaila Sarr then offered the flourishes. All three players crucially elevated a supreme team performance, on an epic day for the club.

Villa meanwhile couldn’t get to that level, as if recent efforts have finally caught up with them. For Palace, this was everything, and you could tell. Eze and Wharton stood out but the collective effort was utterly immense.

There were so many blocks and ultra-committed challenges, of the type that only come when something greater is on the line; when players go deep into themselves. This would be of profound value, after all. Palace are the only club left in this FA Cup that have never won a major trophy.

Villa are now out, after a 3-0 defeat where they didn’t give the best of themselves. It was the one pity about an otherwise vibrant occasion at Wembley, where you could feel how much it meant to both clubs.

Villa just couldn’t transfer that desire in the way they wanted. They are almost vintage victims of their own success in that sense. They’ve had so much on the line of late, and the chance to end a trophy drought that this represented has almost been too much amid a push for Champions League qualification, as well as a Champions League quarter-final itself.

This does not take away from Palace’s victory, though. They were good value and this was a 3-0 that really could have been a 4-0 or 5-0 on chances. There was even a missed penalty from Jean-Philippe Mateta.

Whatever the figures on the scoreboard, though, the reality was that Palace did a number on Villa.

It is credit to their manager, Oliver Glasner. You can see why Palace quoted Bayern Munich so high a figure when they came for him in the summer. It is said to be well over £20m. If he wins the FA Cup, to follow Eintracht Frankfurt’s 2022 Europa League, it will be priceless.