A little earlier on, we mentioned Crystal Palace doing the double over Manchester United last season. It was a topic that came up during Erik ten Hag’s pre-match press conference, but he didn’t bite when asked what lessons his side might have taken.
“Not in particular,” he said. “We know what will come to us. We know it’s always tough there, always aggressive there. But we know also the circumstances and you can’t compare this.
“We didn’t have a fit squad, we even had one or two players that were maybe up to 20 per cent to play, but we had to play them. And this time it’s totally different, we have now a fit squad. We have, definitely, 18 players who are capable to go into this good challenge for us.”
No excuses today then, Erik!