Sunday, February 18th. Spotland. Rochdale. FA Cup fifth round.
Rochdale were a League One side who had earned their place in the fifth round by beating Millwall and then Huddersfield, a Premier League club, in the fourth round.
Their reward was Crystal Palace away from home, which the draw had reversed to give them the tie at Spotland, the ten-thousand-seat ground in Greater Manchester where the floodlights were older than most of the Palace squad and the pitch had a slope that the groundsman insisted was "character" and that Sarah, reviewing the footage, described as "a four-degree gradient that will affect every long ball played towards the south end."
I made eleven changes. The same philosophy as the Forest match. The same message.
