Romantics as well as purists will be lucky if today’s FA Cup final in Cardiff riddles the cockles and stirs the spirits.
Romantics as well as purists will be lucky if today’s FA Cup final in Cardiff riddles the cockles and stirs the spirits. The knockout rounds might have been compelling enough, but for some time now succeeding finals have been limpidly predictable. Perhaps the event itself yearns too longingly for a return to its natural home at Wembley. That chaotic building site in London must surely be up and running by next May (precisely the forecast of 12 months ago). For neutrals, Liverpool vs West Ham this afternoon whets few appetites; keenest interest for pessimists is whether England’s World Cupper Gerrard is next to follow fellow Scouser Rooney into the emergency outpatients’ department.
West Ham are a gaping street behind Liverpool in the Premiership, but should the intermittently attractive London side manage a heady outsiders’ victory today, it would buck a tediously repetitive trend.
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