FA Cup semi-final dates confirmed with Arsenal fixture causing major headache

The FA Cup semi-finals will be played at Wembley later this month, with Nottingham Forest, Manchester City, Crystal Palace and Aston Villa all hoping to book a ticket back there in May

The Football Association have confirmed the dates for this season’s FA Cup semi-finals. Nottingham Forest, Manchester City, Crystal Palace and Aston Villa are the final four teams left in the competition and they’ll do battle at Wembley later this month.

Forest will take on City, last year’s finalists who lifted the cup in 2023, while Palace and Villa are both hoping to reach the FA Cup final for the second time in the last decade. Now they all know when and at what time they’ll be playing their semi-final clashes.

Palace will play Villa at 5:15pm on Saturday, April 26 before Forest face City at 4:30pm on Sunday, April 27. Saturday’s match will be broadcast by the BBC while Sunday’s will be available on ITV platforms.

The scheduling of the fixtures will have ramifications on each club’s Premier League season, most prominently Palace. The Eagles were due to play Arsenal away on semi-final weekend, so that fixture has been brought forward to Wednesday, April 23.

Coincidentally, City were scheduled to face Villa at home that weekend, meaning their clash – which is set to be crucial in both club’s bid to qualify for the Champions League – will now take place on Tuesday, April 22. Villa will therefore have one more day of rest ahead of their semi-final compared to Palace.

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Forest’s game against Brentford, meanwhile, has been pushed back to Thursday, May 1. The reason why Palace couldn’t have their game pushed back is because Arsenal could be involved in the Champions League semi-finals, with the first legs taking place on the week beginning April 28.

Eagled-eyed fans will spot that although there’s no Premier League fixture to compete with Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final between Palace and Villa, Forest and City will kick-off at the exact same time as Liverpool face Tottenham at Anfield on the Sunday. That could be the game in which Liverpool secure the Premier League title.

Who’ll win the FA Cup? Give us your prediction in the comments section.

The FA have also confirmed the prize money for the semi-finals. The two winning teams will each receive £1m while the losers will both get £500,000 as a consolation. This season’s final takes place at Wembley on Saturday, May 18.

City are the favourites to win the FA Cup for the second time in three years. By winning 2-1 at Bournemouth last weekend, they became the first team in FA Cup history to reach the semi-finals for seven consecutive years, beating their own record.

Pep Guardiola hailed when speaking to the BBC: “Seven times in a row semi-final in the FA Cup, no team has done it, and it will be difficult for any other to do what these legendary players, the new ones and the old ones, will have done.”

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