Crystal Palace vs Everton. The FA Cup Quarter-Final.
Selhurst ParkAttendance25,400.
Report from the Emirates FA Cup quarter-final clash between Crystal Palace and Everton at Selhurst Park as Eagles claim a thumping 4-0 win; Marc Guehi among goalscorers following his first England call-up; Palace to face Chelsea in last four
Sunday 20 March 2022 17:44, UK
Crystal Palace produced a slick attacking performance to thrash Everton 4-0 and set up an FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea at Wembley.
Marc Guehi, called up to Gareth Southgate's England squad for the first time earlier this week, headed home Michael Olise's corner for the opening goal (25), with Jean-Philippe Mateta then converting from Wilfried Zaha's cut-back (41).
Palace, FA Cup runners-up in 2016, when they were narrowly beaten by Manchester United in extra-time, continued to overpower Everton in the second half with Zaha (79) and substitute Will Hughes (87) extending their lead with close-range finishes.
Relegation-threatened Everton came into the game on the back of a morale-boosting 1-0 win over Newcastle in the Premier League on Thursday, but those exertions appeared to take a toll in the south London sun as they rarely threatened after a bright start.
Palace, on the other hand, offered plenty of excitement with Olise, Eberechi Eze, Zaha and Conor Gallagher named in the same starting line-up for the first time, the youthful quartet allowing the home supporters to continue dreaming of Wembley glory.
Everton started brightly on the back of their dramatic win over Newcastle, with Ben Godfrey almost sliding home a diagonal shot by Michael Keane in the second minute and Richarlison causing problems for Guehi in the early stages.
But an injury to former Palace man Andros Townsend, who had to be helped from the field after twisting his knee in the 13th minute, seemed to tilt the momentum in Palace's favour.
Guehi's goal arrived after Olise's initial corner had almost caught Jordan Pickford out, the returning Everton 'keeper having to punch it over the crossbar, and Palace almost doubled their lead when Zaha sent a Mateta cut-back into the side-netting.
Richarlison then spurned a chance to equalise when he fired straight at Jack Butland from Seamus Coleman's diagonal ball over the top and that wasted opportunity was punished when Palace sliced through Everton not long afterwards, with Mateta converting after Eze had released Zaha on the left.
Mateta had a chance to add a third shortly before the break, when he latched onto a headed pass from Eze, who shone on only his fourth start of the season, but Seamus Coleman made an excellent recovery tackle before he could get a shot off.
Frank Lampard, who won the competition four times to Palace boss Patrick Vieira's five as a player, threw on Dominic Calvert-Lewin at half-time but Everton could not live with Palace's vibrant attack.
The third goal came in bizarre circumstances after Olise had failed to connect properly with a shot, sending it looping onto Pickford's far post, where Zaha reacted quickest to slide the ball home.
Demarai Gray was the only Everton player who looked dangerous at the other end, once flashing a low shot narrowly wide from outside the box, but substitute Hughes sparked more delirious celebrations from the home fans when he turned the ball home after Gallagher's low shot had been well saved.
Everton manager Frank Lampard bemoaned his side's lack of steel, saying: "I don't have a magic wand to get inside people's heads and change resilience across the whole squad. That's a work in progress.
"The difficult thing for us is that we don't have lots of time in terms of the league to do that.
"My job title is quite vast as a manager, but to get inside heads and change that with the flick of a switch is not possible."
He added: "There's only so much you can keep trying to butter someone up to give them confidence.
"There's a balance of confidence and playing at the cut-throat end of football here.
"This is a quarter-final today to get to Wembley and if you haven't got the confidence to play, you can quickly flip it and say, have you got the b******* to play?
"That's the football reality. If you fall somewhere in the middle, then don't worry about it.
"We didn't play that badly today and Palace didn't play that well today, but we lost 4-0 because of a lack of confidence and a lack of what I just said."
Crystal Palace boss Patrick Vieira said: "It's just about performing on the day and I think today we performed really well.
"The objective was to go to the semi-final and we needed to perform well as a team and managed to go one step forward, so that's the most important thing.
"What I really loved the performance today is how we managed the game. We went through a really difficult period in the first 20 minutes, but we managed to stick together.
"We showed some experience - that hasn't been our strength this season - and we accepted the fact they were on top of us and we couldn't play, so we decided to go longer and to wait until we got back into the game. We managed that period really well.
"We don't want to get too excited. What we want to do is enjoy the day, but at the same time we only went one step forward. What I want is for us to keep working well and working hard and to try to improve individually allowing us to improve more as a team."
Wilfried Zaha told ITV Sport: "It's amazing. Obviously it's crazy that it's the first year that the team's played together and you can see the progress already.
"I think that, over time when the team gels together more, there's more to come."
Marc Guehi added: "It was a bit of a nervy start from myself but I think we responded well by being resilient, by defending well and making sure that, in that period, we didn't concede.
"Thankfully we didn't and we went on to have a good performance.
"Fantastic feeling going to Wembley. We've achieved a lot this season and we can't wait for that game."
