Premier League and FA Cup: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action

In the summer of 2020, Liverpool were big favourites to sign Timo Werner from RB Leipzig before the move fell through when Jürgen Klopp could not assure his fellow German of regular first-team football. Liverpool fans have spent the last couple of seasons relieved that the striker chose Chelsea instead, his numbers way down on what they were in the Bundesliga. Werner remains a maddening but intriguing presence. Watch the denouement of the FA Cup semi-final. In the final 10 minutes, he overruns the ball to ruin a fast break, has the energy to get back and halt a Palace counterattack, is named man of the match, flashes a cross into the box with no Chelsea shirt in sight, drives into the area again to put the ball on a plate for Romelu Lukaku, who hits a post, and rounds it all off by ballooning a dreadful shot into Row Z. There is Werner’s Chelsea career in microcosm. Wild, erratic and inconsistent and yet he’s capable of being the biggest threat to Klopp and Liverpool in next month’s FA Cup final. David Tindall

Match report: Chelsea 2-0 Crystal Palace

Liverpool’s previous great era of the 1970s and 1980s owed its longevity to a careful evolution of the squad. One or two players at a time would be quietly added to augment and eventually supplant those in the first XI. Decades on, and with top-level football a squad rather than team game, Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool is doing much the same, with recent additions making big contributions to the club’s push for multiple trophies. Ibrahima Konaté’s header for Liverpool’s first was the latest showing of his power in the air while Luis Díaz’s energy and devilment caused Manchester City huge problems as Liverpool compiled the 3-0 first-half lead that eventually took them through to