With Crystal Palace’s FA Cup semi-final showdown with Chelsea now just days away, manager Patrick Vieira will be thinking long and hard about who to replace Conor Gallagher within the midfield.
The 22-year-old has featured in every round of the FA Cup but will be unable to participate in Sunday’s semi-final at Wembley after the Blues rejected a request from Palace to give him a special dispensation to feature. Instead, Gallagher will have to watch from the sidelines as his current teammates battle against his parent club in the Eagles’ biggest game of the season.
His absence will be a big blow for Vieira but one that he has had time to prepare for, though there aren’t too many players available for him to replace Gallagher with. Finding someone who can replicate the loanee’s work rate is nigh-on impossible, while with eight goals to his name, there isn’t another midfielder in the squad who has contributed to more goals than he has.
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It’s likely then that Vieira will have to change his tactics - something he did to good effect when the Blues visited Selhurst Park back in February. Gallagher was unavailable for that game, too, with Palace setting up in a more compact 4-2-3-1 formation that saw Michael Olise provide the creative spark as a number ten. A late Hakim Ziyech goal in that game denied the Eagles what would’ve been a hard-fought point, though it proved to Vieira his side were disciplined enough to match their opponents across the 90 minutes.
Suppose he is to implement the same tactics on Sunday. Though, in that case, it might have to be with different personnel, with Olise missing Palace’s last two league games with a foot injury. Even if the France Under-21 international is fit enough to feature, Vieira might think twice about starting him due to the intensity the game will likely be played at combined with the risk of him getting injured again.
Instead, Ebere Eze seems the most natural fit to replace Gallagher in midfield. His recent performances against Everton in the quarter-final and Leicester in the league show Vieira he’s ready for the challenge. The 23-year-old has played a bit-part role in Palace’s season as he’s slowly been brought back into the fold following last year’s season-ending Achilles injury picked up in training.
Vieira has said Eze has cut a frustrated figure at times while he waits for more regular game time, though the decision to bed him back into the team slowly seems to have paid off with his best performances coming in recent weeks. He was key to helping Palace recover from a slow start against the Toffees in the previous round and played a big part in Jean-Philippe Mateta’s opener, where he was spotted looking ecstatic in the centre of the pitch after the ball had hit the back of the net.
With Will Hughes having picked up a knock prior to Palace’s trip to midfield, it now seems all the more likely that Eze will get a chance to leave his mark on the semi-final and play a part in the biggest game of Palace’s season. With a berth in the final up for grabs, he could well write his name into the history books this weekend.
