Chelsea beat Palace to book Liverpool clash in FA Cup final

LONDON : Second-half goals from Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Mason Mount saw Chelsea overcome Crystal Palace 2-0 in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley Stadium on Sunday and set up a showdown with Liverpool.

Former Palace loanee Loftus-Cheek put Chelsea ahead after 65 minutes when Kai Havertz's cross from the right took a deflection out to the winger, who hammered a shot that hit defender Joachim Andersen and flew into the net.

Mount added a crucial second goal just over 10 minutes later and sealed the victory for Chelsea, playing Timo Werner's ball from the edge of the box past Andersen with his first touch and burying it past goalkeeper Jack Butland with his second.

Thomas Tuchel's Chelsea ground down a hard-working Palace team and will meet Liverpool at Wembley again in a re-match of the League Cup final, which they lost on penalties in February.

(Reporting by Hritika Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris)