This is a really interesting piece on the guy behind the guy at the Palace
Team News
Three changes from Chelsea after winning 2-3/5-4 in Madrid. Cesar Azpilicueta, Jorginho and Andreas Christensen replace Ruben Loftus-Cheek, N’Golo Kante and Thiago Silva.
Patrick Vieira makes four changes from the Palace side who lost 2-1 at Leicester last weekend. Jack Butland, Joel Ward, James McArthur and Eberechi Eze are replacing Vicente Guaita, Nathaniel Clyne, the ineligible Conor Gallagher and Jordan Ayew. McArthur is also captain of the team.
Updated at 3:55pm BST
preamble
Hello and welcome to the live coverage of the FA Cup semi-final between Chelsea and Crystal Palace at Wembley. There are two ways to do this – the well-known fairy tale or the fairy tale. Chelsea hope to reach their 11th FA Cup final since the turn of the century; Palace are aiming for the third FA Cup final in their entire history.
Palace will be without the contagious Conor Gallagher, whose parents won’t let him out to play tonight. Oh, and they’ve lost their last nine games against Chelsea. But for all my frankly inappropriate doom and gloom, Palace will see the chance of an upset. They are in good form, have caused problems for some big clubs this season and have an outside chance of claiming their highest league spot since the glorious 1990/91 season. An FA Cup final would cap a superb first season under Patrick Vieira.
Chelsea want a repeat of the Carabao Cup final against Liverpool, ideally without Kepa smashing the crucial penalty midway to Harlesden. They can still do a treble of sorts – the Club World Cup, Super Cup and FA Cup would be a decent return, especially given their off-field struggles.
Palace will hope that Chelsea’s emotional Champions League defeat by Real Madrid took a lot out of them. We’ll find out soon enough.
Kick off 16:30 CET.
Updated at 11/15 BST