Crystal Palace vs Man City news: Opinion – Can Eagles cause FA Cup upset?

When you are a neutral, we all like an upset in the FA Cup final, but it is a big task for Crystal Palace to beat Manchester City on Saturday.

Since some heavy defeats against City and Newcastle, Palace seems to have turned a corner. They beat Aston Villa in the semi-final in a fantastic day at Wembley for them. They have showed a little bit of consistency and momentum from that.

But this is Palace’s first FA Cup final in nine years and only their third overall. Whereas for Manchester City, a trip to Wembley is a regular thing at the end of the season. That know-how and experience can play a big part on these big days – that energy, that excitement of players, at times it can drain a lot out of you. When you are playing against a team that is used to these environments, it can be quite difficult.

Palace will certainly have changed their style and tactics since those two defeats where they conceded 10 goals. They will be defensively more resilient, they will be harder to beat, but I think it will still be a difficult task. However, it is an FA Cup final and you never know what is going to happen. Who expected Manchester United to beat City last year? Not many of us.

Oliver Glasner’s side come into this with some momentum and good confidence, while you can look at Manchester City against Southampton, arguably City did dominate and just could not get the ball in the back of the net, so could that be something Crystal Palace look at?

With Ebere Eze and Jean-Phillippe Mateta on transitions, they are players that can make a real difference. Tactically it will be a really interesting one, but we know Manchester City are cup final kings.

Fara Williams was speaking to BBC Sport’s Nicola Pearson