Liverpool, Chelsea set up FA Cup final duel
Klopp plays down talk of quadruple bid • Spurs, Arsenal lose as United back into EPL top-4 race
LONDON (Reuters) Second-half goals from Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Mason Mount saw Chelsea overcome Crystal Palace 2-0 in the FA Cup semifinal at Wembley Stadium on Sunday night and set up a showdown with Liverpool.
Former Palace loanee Loftus-Cheek put Chelsea ahead after 65 minutes when Kai Havertz’s cross from the right took a deflection out to the winger, who hammered a shot that hit defender Joachim Andersen and flew into the net.
Mount added a crucial second goal just over 10 minutes later and sealed the victory for Chelsea, playing Timo Werner’s ball from the edge of the box past Andersen with his first touch and burying it past goalkeeper Jack Butland with his second.
Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea ground down a hard-working Palace team and will meet Liverpool at Wembley again in a re-match of the League Cup final, which the Blues lost on penalties in February.
Meanwhile, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp played down his team’s chances of winning an unprecedented quadruple this season even as it defeated Manchester City to reach the FA Cup final on Saturday.
Liverpool hung on to win 3-2 against City on Saturday and was waiting to see Sunday’s other semifinal between Chelsea and Crystal Palace to learn its foe in the May 14 final.
The Merseyside club won the League Cup in February and is second in the Premier League, having also reached the semifinals of the Champions League to remain on track for a haul of four trophies this season.
“I think a game like today shows it even more how unlikely it is to do something like that,” Klopp told reporters when asked about their quadruple hopes.
“We went through against City... and in three days we play again against Manchester United, who with their three points and the results from Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal, the fight for the Champions League is open for all of the three.
“Then in a few days we play Everton... then we play Villarreal, which will not be a friendly game. Then Newcastle United and all these kind of things, so it’s just
incredibly intense and it is really unlikely the team will win all the games,” he added.
“But I couldn’t care less, to be honest. It is just, let’s go for it, let’s try to win the next game and then we will see how we can recover between now and then.”
Forward Sadio Mane, who scored twice, said winning the quadruple is a “dream.”
“We have a lot of games to go, we will try to do our best,” he said.
In Premier League action fourth-place Tottenham Hotspur suffered a surprise 1-0 home defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion and Arsenal lost at Southampton,allowing Manchester United back into the race for a Premier League topfour place.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick for United in an unconvincing 3-2 win over Norwich City as fan protests against the club’s owners returned to Old Trafford.
With the title-chasing top two of Manchester City and Liverpool in FA Cup semifinal duty the focus in the league turned to the battle for the fourth Champions League spot behind third-place Chelsea.
The results leave Spurs in fourth, on 57 points from 32 games. Fifth-place United is level on 54 points with Arsenal, which has a game in hand.
Antonio Conte’s Spurs produced a lackluster display and looked set for a frustrating stalemate before Leandro Trossard made things even worse with a 90th-minute winner.
Trossard cut in from the left and beat Hugo Lloris with a low angled shot with the outside of his foot to end Spurs’ run of four straight wins.
Conte was disappointed but said his team needed to embrace the pressure of holding on to fourth place.
“Now there are six games to go. This race is a big opportunity for us to start to try to cope with the pressure, because when you play without targets… instead, we deserve to stay in this race and go for a place in the Champions League,” he said.
Arsenal looked to be favored for that place at the start of the month, but the Gunners have now suffered three straight losses with the latest reverse coming against a Southampton side that had been winless in five.
Jan Bednarek got the decisive goal, one minute before halftime after Mohamed Elyounoussi evaded the offside trap and crossed for the defender to finish past goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale.
Arsenal was on top for large parts of the game but came up against Southampton ’keeper Fraser Forster in inspired form.,
“It’s a really difficult one to take. The way we controlled the game makes it difficult to understand how we lost the game,” said Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta.
“We performed but didn’t get a result. We need both. You have to put the ball in the net. You have to make the decisive moments count to win football matches and at the moment we’re not doing that,” added the Spaniard.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s 50th club career hat-trick earned below-par United three vital points.
A first-half double from veteran striker Ronaldo seemingly put the hosts on course for a comfortable win in the sunshine, with Norwich struggling to keep pace.
However, Kieran Dowell’s goal out of nowhere in first-half stoppage time got the visitors back in the contest, before Finnish forward Teemu Pukki completed the Norwich comeback to stun Old Trafford into silence seven minutes after the break.
Fans who protested against the club’s owners ahead of the match were singing “you’re not fit to wear the shirt” in the second half as their team was second best to a team seven points adrift of the Premier League safety zone.
United’s France midfielder Paul Pogba was booed by his own fans as he was substituted before Ronaldo stole the show once again with a superbly taken winner 14 minutes from time.
“The results elsewhere were good. But it doesn’t make sense to look to other results. We need to raise our game,” said United’s interim manager Ralf Rangnick.
Watford, in 19th place, slipped further towards the drop with a 2-1 home defeat to Brentford leaving it on 22 points, six behind 17th-place Everton having played two games more.
Norwich is bottom on 21 points from 32 games while 18th-place Burnley, which sacked manager Sean Dyche on Friday and is on 24 points, played at seventh-place West Ham on Sunday.