Crystal Palace hang on to set up United clash in FA Cup final

Crystal Palace 2 Watford 1

Alan Pardew performed his best Steve Coppell impression on the final whistle here, turning on his heels in the technical area and darting down the tunnel, to leave the public celebrations for his players out on the pitch. His managerial mentor had done the same up at Villa Park in 1990 on the last occasion Crystal Palace secured passage into an FA Cup final. Now, 26 years on, this club has another showpiece event to relish.

This was arguably their best performance of a bizarrely unpredictable season, a victory secured courtesy of Connor Wickham’s magnificent header with Watford never truly coming to terms with the pace and invention the team from south London offered through their attacking ranks. Manchester United await in the final, just as they did when Pardew, the player, had nodded the winner against Liverpool all those years ago. That game was lost in a replay. Palace, watched by their new co-owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer, will hope they can forge a different kind of history this time round.

This had always felt likely to prove a tight contest between two teams whose Premier League form has drained away alarmingly over the calendar year. The focus has been drawn to the doubts surrounding the future of Quique Sánchez Flores at Vicarage Road, for all that his team have secured their top-flight status and will enjoy successive years in the elite for the first time since the mid-1980s. Pardew still needs one positive result to be mathematically sure Palace will be joining them, the team’s last 18 league games having yielded a solitary win. Yet their FA Cup form has buoyed them and, with an attack-minded lineup laced with pace, they had torn into this fixture with relish.

Their advantage might have been well established by the interval, so menacing were Wilfried Zaha, Yannick Bolasie and Jason Puncheon pouring forward on to Yohan Cabaye’s calm delivery or reacting to Wickham’s lay-offs. Nathan Aké might have conceded a penalty when handling Zaha’s clipped cross, the winger having tormented his marker and José Manuel Jurado down that flank. The loss of Étienne Capoue to a knee injury, the midfielder jarring the joint in an innocuous collision with Bolasie, had further disrupted Watford’s rhythm with the closest they had come to plundering themselves limited to Joel Ward almost finding his own net from Allan Nyom’s vicious centre.

By then, Flores’ side trailed to a goal that could have been lifted straight from the script of Villa Park and Palace’s celebrated set-piece dissection of the last truly great Liverpool side. Cabaye’s corner had been fizzed into the near-post where Damien Delaney, one of four starters here in the squad at the Championship play-off final in 2013, out-muscled Craig Cathcart to flick on and over Costel Pantilimon. The Irishman was playing the Andy Thorn role, with Pardew himself having converted on that April day 26 years ago. Here it was Bolasie, spinning off Aké to eke space from Troy Deeney and Nyom at the far post, who nodded it in. The winger had not even emerged from the Palace bench here three years ago. With his boots sporting an image of Wembley, he had long been awaiting his moment.

The Congolese was denied a second after the interval, Pantilimon conjuring a fine save after Bolasie had left Miguel Britos in a heap just outside the penalty area and belted a low shot at goal from a tight angle. Yet, by then, Watford had injected more urgency into their approach. Where the combination play between Deeney and Odion Ighalo had initially been disjointed, limited to one first-half interchange of note, they started to muscle Palace’s centre-halves out of their comfort zone as the contest progressed. Scott Dann had been booked for a foul on Ighalo when, from Jurado’s corner, Deeney held off the defender to flick in an equaliser and shrug the team awake. It was only his second goal in 11 games.

In truth, the slack form of both sides’ strikers had gone some way to explaining their respective post-Christmas slumps, which arguably made Palace’s immediate riposte all the more unlikely. Pape Souaré’s hopeful centre just after the hour rather looped towards the penalty spot where Wickham leapt above Aké and, neck muscles straining, thumped a downward header back and beyond the diving Pantilimon.

It was as if the left-back had not sensed any immediate danger, though Palace’s threat was always there. The excellent Zaha, charging from deep inside his own half, and Cabaye might have added to the lead and, for all that Adlène Guedioura smeared a volley just wide, the win was merited. Palace, for only the second time in their 111-year history, have an FA Cup final ahead.