Key occasions
It’s a lovely sunny morning in west London and Craven Cottage, although not famend for its rocking ambiance, needs to be bang up for this one. The prize of a Wembley look for these two golf equipment is a biggie.
Preamble
It’s FA Cup quarter-final weekend, with the primary of those 4 barely unlikely ties – Manchester Metropolis aside – coming within the type of a London derby at Craven Cottage. Fulham and Crystal Palace are each chasing historical past on this competitors this season, having by no means lifted the cup. Palace got here shut practically a decade in the past in that 2016 ultimate towards Manchester United, (Alan Pardew’s dance, Jesse Lingard’s aim and all that) whereas it’s been 50 years since Fulham final received all the way in which to a Wembley showpiece. One in every of them is assured a semi-final journey to north London at the very least.
Jean-Philippe Mateta appears to be like set to make his return after struggling a nasty head harm in Palace’s earlier FA Cup recreation towards Millwall, with each groups lucky sufficient to have come by the worldwide break with no lengthy checklist of absentees.
This can be a actually robust one to name, however needs to be uber-competitive: you’d need to go a good distance to search out two units of supporters who’re extra up for the cup. Kick off is at 12.15pm GMT, so let’s get going – group information might be upon us shortly.
