FA Cup
CHELSEA MAY LOSE SIX PLAYERS AFTER TODAY’S FA CUP FINAL
Speculations are rife that six players may be having their last dance with Chelsea after today’s FA Cup final match with Arsenal. The players are Willian, Kepa Arrizabalaga, Michy Batshuayi, Jorginho, Emerson Palmieri and N’Golo Kante.
Willian, a winger was one of Chelsea’s standout performers after the restart and ended the Premier League season with nine goals and seven assists to his name.
The Brazilian was involved in all but two of the Blues’ 38 top-flight contests this term, underlining his continued importance to the cause.
However, Willian will become a free agent after the FA Cup final, having failed to agree a contract extension with the club.
While the player is holding out for a three-year deal, Chelsea have only offered him two extra seasons.
Sky Sports report the two parties may have found a compromise, but as things stand a summer departure still looks possible.
Willian is likely to stay in the Premier League even if he bids Chelsea farewell, with Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur monitoring the situation closely.
Chelsea paid a world-record fee for a goalkeeper when they signed Kepa Arrizabalaga from Athletic Club for £71.5million.
But the club are already reportedly willing to cut their losses after two mediocre seasons from the Spanish shot-stopper.
Lampard appears to have lost confidence in Kepa, dropping him for last Sunday’s crucial clash with Wolverhampton Wanderers in favour of the veteran Willy Caballero.
Oblak and Henderson may prove out of reach for Chelsea, but it’s clear that Kepa is no longer guaranteed the No.1 jersey at Stamford Bridge.
However, the west Londoners have little chance of recouping anything close to the fee they paid for the Spaniard two summers ago.
The arrival of Werner has pushed Michy Batshuayi further down the centre-forward pecking order at Chelsea.
The Belgian barely got a look in this campaign, with Tammy Abraham and Olivier Giroud preferred by Lampard.
Batshuayi only made one Premier League start all season, and his 16 appearances totalled just 226 minutes.
Having previously been sent out for loan spells at Borussia Dortmund, Valencia and Crystal Palace, Batshuayi could move on permanently this summer.
Brighton & Hove Albion and West Ham United have been linked with the 26-year-old, who joined Chelsea from Marseille in 2016.
Jorginho was Maurizio Sarri’s first signing as Chelsea boss. The midfielder was expected to depart when the former manager left last summer.
Instead, the Brazil-born Italy international enjoyed a much-improved season under Lampard, turning in some fine performances and emerging as a leader.
Even so, there remains a suspicion that Jorginho isn’t ideally suited to what Lampard wants from a player in his role.
The former Napoli man is adept at setting the tempo and retaining possession, but he’s struggled to afford the backline the sort of protection that’s required of a holding midfielder.
As such, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Jorginho was also let go ahead of next season, with Sarri likely to be interested in another reunion at Juventus.
Emerson Palmieri looked like an astute addition in January 2018, and Chelsea fans thought he would replace Marcos Alonso at left wing-back.
But things haven’t gone to plan for the former Roma defender, whose prospects barely improved after Sarri restored a four-man defence at Stamford Bridge following Antonio Conte’s departure.
Another Brazil-born Italy international, Emerson has started only 23 Premier League games in two-and-a-half years on the Chelsea books.
Alonso has tended to be given the nod in his position, and Lampard has at times entrusted the left-back role to Cesar Azpilicueta ahead of him.
That suggests he doesn’t completely trust Emerson, who turns 26 on Monday and may want to kick-start his career elsewhere.
Kante has endured an injury-hit campaign, but his displays when fit weren’t quite of the level of previous years.
The former Leicester City man is a world-class ball-winner, but Lampard’s style of play is different to that of Claudio Ranieri and Conte, the two managers Kante has enjoyed his best seasons under.
Given their substantial outlay on Werner, Ziyech and, if a deal goes through, Havertz, Chelsea might be tempted to sell Kante if they receive a bid.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola admitted he was surprised that Norwegian striker Erling Haaland declined to take a penalty for his side in Saturday’s FA Cup final against Crystal Palace with the kick subsequently being missed by Omar Marmoush.
Trailing 1-0 to Eberechi Eze’s goal, City were awarded a penalty in the first half when Palace defender Tyrick Mitchell tripped Bernardo Silva who had burst into the area.
Haaland, who had failed to score in his first five Wembley appearances for City, looked poised to break that duck, but handed the ball to Marmoush whose first-ever penalty for City was superbly saved by Dean Henderson.
“I thought he would want to take it but they didn’t speak,” said Guardiola. “That moment for the penalty, it’s the feeling and how they feel. They decided Omar was ready to take it.
“Omar took a lot of time when the ball was stopped, so it put more pressure on him, and Henderson made a good save.”
Former Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney, working as a TV pundit for the BBC, said he felt the occasion might have got to Haaland.
“He’s a world-class forward, but when we are talking about Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, there is no way they are giving that ball away,” Rooney said.
“That is what separates them two players from Erling Haaland or Kylian Mbappe and these players. They are selfish and they want to score every game.
“When (Haaland) misses chances I think you can see it gets to him and it does affect him. Maybe the thought of taking a penalty at Wembley might have been too much for him. You never know, he is a human being.”
Haaland has scored 30 goals for City this season in all competitions but has missed three of his seven penalties.
-Reuters
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Crystal Palace face Manchester City at Wembley on Saturday hoping to lift the FA Cup for the first time and it is guaranteed that high on the pre-match agenda will be the club’s extraordinary and eventually heartbreaking 1990 campaign.
The semi-finals and final(s) that year were arguably the most dramatic in the competition’s long and storied history and remain the emotional high and low point of every Palace fan who watched them.
Palace were struggling in the top flight after promotion and had been humiliated 9-0 by Liverpool early in the season.
In the Cup they were hardly pulling up trees either, beating lower league Portsmouth, Huddersfield Town, Rochdale and Cambridge United to reach the semi-finals for the first time since they lost to Southampton as a third division team in 1976.
Facing runaway champions-elect and FA Cup holders Liverpool again in the semis look an insurmountable barrier and an Ian Rush goal had the Reds ahead at halftime at Villa Park.
Things then went crazy as Mark Bright and Gary O’Reilly gave Palace a shock lead. Two goals in two minutes put Liverpool back in front, only for Andy Gray to stun the odds-on favourites in the 88th minute to force extra time.
Amazingly, it was Palace who snatched victory in the 109th minute via Alan Pardew, who would later manage the club.
It was the first year that both semi-finals were live on TV and barely had the excitement abated when similarly unfancied Oldham ran out to face Manchester United at Maine Road.
The second division team had not beaten top-flight opposition in 66 years but accounted for four that season in a double cup run that caught the nation’s imagination.
Playing vibrant, attacking football under Joe Royle, Oldham twice came from behind to draw 3-3 after extra time – meaning a remarkable 13 goals had been scored on a day of unimaginable drama. United ended Oldham’s dream when they snatched a 2-1 victory six minutes from the end of extra time in the replay.
ALL-ENGLISH TEAM
The Palace side who lined up at Wembley were the last all-English team to play in the final while United’s were the last all-UK lineup to win it.
United manager Alex Ferguson was under huge pressure to deliver a trophy four years after arriving at Old Trafford, but Palace struck first through O’Reilly.
Bryan Robson and Mark Hughes turned it round and United seemed on course for victory, only for Ian Wright to come off the bench for the most wonderful 20 minutes of his life.
The former non-league striker had been sidelined for much of the season with a twice-broken leg, but exploded into action to equalise with virtually his first touch and then put the Londoners ahead early in extra time.
“It’s still the greatest moment I’ve had in my career – easily – simply because of everything that it had entailed up to that point,” Wright told the Palace website on Friday.
“My emergence at Palace, and to reach the biggest stage in English football, and all of a sudden I’m on the Wembley pitch.
“And then what happened after that was the stuff of fairytales. It really, really was.”
However, as the Palace fans sang in dreamland, Hughes broke their hearts with a late equaliser.
The replay five days later could not live up to everything that had gone before and though Palace battled gamely, United won it 1-0 with a goal by Lee Martin.
It was a victory that launched Ferguson and United on their dizzying journey of success – that included another extra-time FA Cup final win over Palace in 2016 after the Scot had retired – but one that left a gaping hole in the hearts of the losers.
“I would have loved to have won that FA Cup, and we were only seven minutes away,” said Wright, who went on to win multiple trophies, including two FA Cups with Arsenal. “Seven minutes. Honestly, I still can’t take it.”
-Reuters
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The first weekend of semi-automated offside decisions in English soccer descended into confusion on Saturday as Bournemouth had a goal ruled out after a record eight-minute VAR check.
Bournemouth, who eventually beat Premier League rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers on penalties in the FA Cup fifth round after a 1-1 draw, thought they had doubled their lead when defender Milos Kerkez scored in the 35th-minute goal.
However, new technology could not be used because the six-yard area was too crowded and VAR officials had to revert to manually drawing lines before disallowing the goal.
Fellow defender Dean Huijsen was adjudged to have been in an offside position as Kerkez’s effort brushed his shoulder before going in to the net.
The VAR check was further complicated as VAR officials Timothy Wood and Darren England also had to also examine the possibility of hand balls prior to the tight offside call.
Both sets of fans voiced their disapproval at the interminable wait, chanting “it’s not football any more” and “this is embarrassing”.
Referee Sam Barrott, who eventually announced the decision to the crowd via a microphone, had to explain to the respective managers and players what was happening during the delay.
-Reuters
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