Crystal Palace boss Alan Pardew calls for FA action on fixture congestion

By Joe Bacon

Image: Alan Pardew has the chance to win Crystal Palace's first FA Cup

Crystal Palace manager Alan Pardew has criticised the Football Association over his side's recent fixture congestion.

The Eagles face Watford in Sunday's FA Cup semi-final after losing 2-0 to Manchester United in the Premier League on Wednesday.

All four FA Cup semi-finalists were forced to play league fixtures on Wednesday evening, and Pardew has urged the FA to act on preventing similar instances in the future.

"The FA need to look at this, because we all had to play [Wednesday] because of the European rule that we can't play on European nights," he said.

"I think the Premier League get fined for that and that's something they perhaps need to re-negotiate, because it really impacts on those weeks where there's no European football.

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"We're squeezing games in; the run we've had, this is our fourth game in 12 days. That's a tough run, when you've got a semi-final, the biggest game in this club's history for a while, since the play-off final.

"Both myself and [Watford manager] Quique Sanchez Flores probably haven't had enough preparation with the team. We would have liked to have a week's run-in to it, preparing our teams, and go through all the detail, and of course we can't do that, so that's a little bit unfortunate."

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Image: Pardew endured a frustrating night at Old Trafford in midweek

Pardew also confirmed Yannick Bolasie, Joe Ledley, Scott Dann and Joel Ward are fit for Sunday's game after sitting out the midweek game. 

He added: "Everybody is fit. Other than [Marouane] Chamakh, [Brede] Hangeland and Paddy McCarthy we're all there."

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