Alan Pardew’s Palace side made amends for their woeful Premier League form with a 2-1 victory over London rivals Watford to set up an intriguing FA Cup final showpiece next month.
Advertisement
Pardew was a Palace player when the club last reached the showpiece in 1990, also against Manchester United.
A back-flicked header by Andy Thorn from a corner led to Pardew’s headed victor against Liverpool.
Watch the full interview with Wickham and fellow Palace goalscorer Yannick Bolasie in the video player below.
“It got a couple of mentions in the week”. Both parties, the club and me, have the possibility to talk about that. Sometimes history does repeat itself.
“This is a different team, with a different spirit, but the characteristics are similar to 1990”.
I thought we played well, even if it did take until being prompted at half time for me to realise that Bolasie had scored and we were winning. They have an honesty about them. They probably weren’t that the last time, in 1990, but they are now so it’s a big challenge for us and the real challenge for us today was to get to the final.
“I hope the destiny isn’t the same result”, he added.
“United have the makings of a great team”.
The Frenchman has featured in high profile games for France and former club Paris St Germain, but will now step out in the final of the world’s famous cup competition in May. “It’s all good talking about the psychology of it – playing the game and not the occasion – but we still had to do it and the players were brilliant, there were some outstanding performances”.
Any criticism of him is entirely unjustified, though: he appears a better manager than Watford deserve and has overseen an impressive first season in English football, regardless of their defeat.
But the defiant Spaniard pointed out he had comfortably leading Watford to safety in their first season back in the top-flight. We are happy as a squad – me, everyone.
“That target is done so I don’t understand why sometimes we need to be negative. The rest during the week has helped because I was that little bit more fresh and anticipating everything”.
Advertisement
Martial’s match-winning moment demonstrated why United were willing to commit up to 80 million euros ($90 million) a year ago on acquiring a largely unproven teenager who is now 20 and a France global forward.
