FA Cup News
Dango Ouattara’s Panenka attempt cost Brentford as West Ham set up a quarter-final with Leeds
1 min Brentford set us away. Given the side Nuno’s sent out, they’ll surely fancy themselves.
Our teams come out, Brentford wearing their away pyjamas.
Continue reading...League One side Port Vale will head to Stamford Bridge while Manchester City host Liverpool in last eight
In such situation I didn’t expect even Marco Silva to blame someone other than him, and yet:
A very bad day for us,” Silva said. “It is probably not the moment to be emotional. It is a moment for us to look deeper.
It is not just another defeat. We lost a big chance. If you want to be in a club that wants to get better your ambition has to always be there. If you are pushing to win a game there are certain standards you cannot drop. Some things are about mentality.”
Continue reading...Max Dowman and Rio Ngumoha staked their claim for more game time while Fulham paid for a lack of ambition
Port Vale have only ever reached the last eight of the FA Cup once before in their entire history, in 1953-54, when they went one stage further, losing the semi-final at Villa Park 2-1 to West Brom thanks to a much-disputed winning goal. If only VAR had been present then, you might say. In their fifth-round victory over Sunderland this weekend, they were also unfortunate despite the presence of technology. Why was referee Anthony Taylor not asked to go and check the TV monitor when George Hall was cynically taken out by the Sunderland goalkeeper Melkor Ellberg, just outside the penalty area with the match on a knife-edge? Even if the striker’s run was going away from goal, he surely had the pace to have got a shot away. Let’s hope VAR give the remaining lower-division teams fair shrift when it comes to the rest of the competition. Peter Lansley
Match report: Port Vale 1-0 Sunderland
Match report: Mansfield Town 1-2 Arsenal
Match report: Newcastle 1-3 Manchester City
Match report: Wrexham 2-4 Chelsea (aet)
Match report: Wolves 1-3 Liverpool
Match report: Fulham 0-1 Southampton
Continue reading...Daniel Farke enjoyed victory over his former club in a fluent display that booked their first quarter-final in 23 years
There are 52 league places between Port Vale and Sunderland, and it’s Vale’s first quarter-final for 72 years. Magic.
“I’ve a strange feeling that Leeds are going to go all the way to the final this year,” emails Justin. “It’s just odd to think they’ve played a European Cup final and won two league titles but have not been back to Wembley for an FA Cup Final since 1973! Even Sunderland got back for one in 1992. Right, that’s Leeds jinxed for another year.”
Continue reading...Pep Guardiola had Omar Marmoush in the tightest of bear hugs and seemed strangely unwilling to release the smiling Egyptian.
It was the 73rd minute and two goals from the newly withdrawn Marmoush, the second a real show stopper, and another from Savinho had enabled Manchester City to come from behind and potentially shatter Newcastle’s entire season.
Continue reading...City came from behind to swat aside Newcastle and keep their quadruple hopes alive
1 min: The kick-off’s sent long, and Newcastle win a throw deep in City territory on the left. Hall launches long. The ball nearly drops first to Woltemade, then Elanga, but neither can get an effort on target and turn themselves into the Jackie Milburn de nos jours. The 45-second mark ticks over without the scoreboard being troubled.
Newcastle United get the ball rolling. City are kicking towards the Gallowgate in this first half.
Continue reading...Chelsea survived a major scare at Cae Ras, twice coming from behind before beating 10-man Wrexham in extra-time
7 min Chelsea look happy to move the ball around and take the sting out of the atmosphere. Wrexham aren’t seeing much of the ball but haven’t been troubled defensively.
4 min A pretty quiet start to the game, at least on the field. The Wrexham fans are still making a very decent noise.
Continue reading...Youthful manager on his unlikely career path with Germany and Sunday’s FA Cup fifth round trip to Fulham
As a 19-year-old studying at a sports university in Cologne, Tonda Eckert jumped at the chance to work for Germany as an analyst at Euro 2012. “It was nice, eh? Take somebody who doesn’t understand anything about the game and put them in,” says the now Southampton head coach, smiling as he recalls being thrust into an elite environment. He entered the same sphere as Joachim Löw, Hansi Flick and a team of greats: Miroslav Klose, Philipp Lahm, Toni Kroos, Manuel Neuer, the list goes on.
For the 2014 World Cup, Eckert was tasked with preparing a dossier on Argentina, who Germany overcame in the final. “The celebrations in Berlin were amazing, at the Fanmeile,” he says of the scenes at the fan zone by Brandenburg Gate. In the semi-finals, Germany humiliated the hosts Brazil, triumphing 7-1 in Belo Horizonte. “You know what Joachim Löw said at half-time? That he wouldn’t let anyone play in the final if they didn’t finish the second half with a sense of humility, because he knew how much it meant to Brazil, in Brazil.”
Continue reading...Playmaker has become peripheral as Manchester City chase quadruple and is no longer a shoo-in for the World Cup
With 76 minutes gone at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday night, Phil Foden was culpable for what might prove the title race’s defining moment. With Manchester City leading Nottingham Forest 2-1, Foden lost Elliot Anderson, who ran off him and curled home a 20-yard equaliser. Sixty seconds later, Pep Guardiola substituted his England playmaker.
As Morgan Gibbs-White’s first equaliser could also be traced back to a loose Foden touch, this was a miserable evening for him: City managed only a draw, and as Arsenal won at Brighton, the title race tilted the Gunners’ way.
Continue reading...Manager knows his quadruple-chasers have a target on their back in their FA Cup fifth round trip to Mansfield
Mikel Arteta knows the score. There is a reason why Arsenal’s trip to Mansfield Town on Saturday is the tie of the FA Cup fifth round, why it has been selected by TNT Sports for a 12.15pm kick-off. It has all the ingredients and everybody – Arsenal fans aside – is looking for an upset. Arteta was asked whether he was clear on that point. “Yes,” the Arsenal manager replied.
It has always been this way when a top club visits a minnow and, to repeat, the plotlines are certainly there for this one. Mansfield are 16th in League One, too close to the relegation line for the comfort of the manager, Nigel Clough. The Stags have gone nine league matches without a win.
Continue reading...Liverpool eased past Wolves to reach the quarter-finals
2 min: Liverpool appear to be employing a one-man press. Jones. That’s it. Wolves play through it, and Mane dallies over a shot from the edge of the D. He can’t get one away, but then Gravenberch clips Toti and it’s a free kick for Wolves in a dangerous position, just left of centre, 30 yards out.
Liverpool get the ball rolling. “It’s 1-0 Falkirk,” writes Simon McMahon. “Hic!”
Continue reading...Thirty-four years on from Mickey Thomas’ winner against Arsenal, the Welsh club seek statement win over Chelsea
“It’s just surreal,” says the former Wrexham midfielder Mickey Thomas, scorer of arguably the club’s most famous goal. When he helped strike down Arsenal, the reigning English champions, in the FA Cup third round in 1992, he could not have expected 34 years later to be regularly rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s biggest stars, regaling them with the story of how he smashed a free-kick past David Seaman.
In recent years, Wrexham have welcomed a glittering array of famous Hollywood guests to Cae Ras, thanks to Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac, who often invite Thomas to the owners’ box. The north Wales town has become a hotbed for famous faces, all given the warmest welcome by a club enjoying a meteoric rise.
Continue reading...Premier League champions have looked slow and lacked tempo with the spotlight on their wingers
Winger is “the hardest position to play” in modern football, according to Arne Slot, and Liverpool’s wide men would find it hard to disagree. A lot of Liverpool’s problems this season can be attributed to their attacking flair being stifled, leaving the champions 19 points adrift of Premier League leaders, Arsenal.
Liverpool return to Molineux on Friday, three days after a stoppage-time defeat by Wolves in the league. The FA Cup fifth-round fixture will be an opportunity for Slot to test his bullpen of wingers and see whether they can do better. Liverpool have scored 48 goals in 29 league matches, the average of 1.66 a game a long way short of the 2.26 when winning last season’s title.
Continue reading...Garnacho gets his chance to stake a claim, a big day for Port Vale and more scheduling concerns for Guardiola
Who would have thought approaching mid-March Wolves would be the Midlands team – at least in the Premier League – with the most to cheer? Aston Villa, while fourth and still capable of securing a place in the Champions League, are wobbling. Nottingham Forest are fighting relegation. In the Championship, Coventry are at the summit but West Brom and Leicester are in danger of dropping into League One. Wolves and third-tier Mansfield are the only Midlands sides remaining in the FA Cup and, while the latter host Arsenal, the former may quietly fancy their chances when Liverpool visit Molineux for the second time in four days. Rob Edwards’s side triumphed on Tuesday and, while it got lost amid the stoppage-time drama, he made several changes with Friday’s Cup tie in mind. “Does it have to be one or the other?” Edwards said. “No, so we are going to try and win both. It is going to be a really exciting night.” Ben Fisher
Wolves v Liverpool, Friday 8pm (all kick-offs GMT)
Mansfield v Arsenal, Saturday 12.15pm
Wrexham v Chelsea, Saturday 5.45pm
Newcastle v Manchester City, Saturday 8pm
Continue reading...Wrexham host Chelsea this weekend. It took three matches in nine days to separate the teams when they met in 1982
In some ways, history is repeating itself. In 1982 Chelsea and Wrexham met in the FA Cup after they had beaten Hull City and Nottingham Forest, respectively, in previous rounds. The same has happened in 2026; but this is where the similarities end.
When the clubs met 44 years ago they were both in the second tier and had huge debts. With Chelsea reportedly £1.6m in the red, the future of Stamford Bridge was in doubt as property developers hovered. Relegation-threatened Wrexham spent the majority of the 1980s merely trying to survive.
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