Category: FA Cup

Mikel Arteta’s team have had a painful start to 2025 and are now facing challenges in three competitions

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For Arsenal, the pattern was all too familiar. They won the xG against Manchester United on Sunday, depending which model you prefer, by around 3.5 to 0.5, but they drew the game 1-1 and with a certain inevitability, lost on penalties. The previous Tuesday, in the first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final, they’d won the xG 3.1-1.2 but lost 2-0 to Newcastle. The previous Saturday, in the league, they drew 1-1 at Brighton despite having won the xG 1.5-0.9. They have begun 2025 by failing to turn dominance into goals and, very quickly, their hopes of a trophy are evaporating.

This was a very good weekend for the FA Cup. Plymouth, bottom of the Championship, pulled off the big upset by eliminating Brentford, while League Two Bromley went ahead before succumbing to Newcastle, non-league Tamworth took Tottenham to extra-time and there were further shocks as Doncaster and Exeter eliminated Hull and Oxford. But the culmination of Sunday’s sulphuric clash at the Emirates: no sense there of Premier League sides soft-pedalling. For Arsenal, the consequences could be hugely significant.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition

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Tamworth’s heroes deserve better, Pep Guardiola tries to fire up Jack Grealish and Liverpool’s teenagers impress

Ruben Amorim’s 3-4-3 tactics have little place in English football, it was said. Recent Manchester United performances of the resurrected Harry Maguire in tandem with Lisandro Martínez and Matthijs de Ligt suggest it can work if with sufficient energy in midfield to protect the trio. Manuel Ugarte and Kobbie Mainoo offer that, and the wing play of Alejandro Garnacho in setting up Bruno Fernandes’s goal, plus Amad Diallo’s raiding runs at the Emirates Stadium, suggest the framework of a team. Penalty hero Altay Bayindir revealed he is a capable goalkeeper, a possible cult hero. There are complications. The club’s finances, chickens of the Glazer ownership now coming home to roost, may trigger selling “pure profit” youth products like Garnacho and Mainoo to fund recruitment. There are significant miles to travel, but the previous weekend’s draw at Anfield, and this 10-man heist at Arsenal are signs of a motivated team playing for their manager, closely following instructions. About time, too. John Brewin

Match report: Arsenal 1-1 Manchester United (3-5 on pens)

Match report: Brentford 0-1 Plymouth

Match report: Bristol City 1-2 Wolves

Match report: Tamworth 0-3 Tottenham

Match report: Leeds 1-0 Harrogate

Match report: Manchester City 8-0 Salford City

Match report: Liverpool 4-0 Accrington

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Altay Bayindir saved one penalty in normal time and one in the shootout as 10-man Manchester United sent the Gunners out

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A shock! Doncaster Rovers, seventh in League Two, have knocked out Championship struggler Hull on penalties, away from home, after a 1-1 draw.

Spurs take a 2-0 lead, as at the Emirates Stadium the players gather in the tunnel.

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• Doncaster go through on penalties after 1-1 draw
• Kalvin Phillips helps Ipswich beat Bristol Rovers 3-0

Grant McCann expressed deep pride after League Two side Doncaster defeated Hull 5-4 on penalties in the third round of the FA Cup to earn a fourth‑round tie against Premier League Crystal Palace.

With the score 1-1 following extra time, Harry Clifton converted the winning spot-kick after Mason Burstow and Alfie Jones missed for the Championship team. Earlier, Luke Molyneux had given Doncaster the lead shortly after half-time but Hull equalised in the 80th minute when Gustavo Puerta followed up Burstow’s low shot that hit the base of the left post.

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During five years on Newcastle’s payroll Andy Woodman’s apparently endless supply of jokes prompted plenty of training ground laughter but club insiders knew better than to underestimate their goalkeeping coach.

That judgment was vindicated as, a decade after leaving Tyneside, Woodman returned in charge of Bromley. Ultimately, League Two’s 12th placed team could not prevent their hosts from recording an eighth straight victory in all competitions but, for quite a while, Woodman’s meticulously organised players ­frustrated Eddie Howe’s Premier League high flyers.

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For Crystal Palace supporters of a certain vintage, any meeting with Stockport is bound to bring back fond memories of Dougie Freedman’s heroics in 2001. More than two decades on from his late goal that ensured Palace avoided relegation to the third tier on the final day of the season and having spent most of the intervening period travelling in different directions, only an early strike from Eberechi Eze could separate Dave Challinor’s side from their Premier League opponents.

Oliver Glasner was grateful that Palace’s stand-in goalkeeper Matt Turner – who stepped in after a sickness bug ruled out Dean Henderson – stood firm in the second half as Stockport sniffed the opportunity of an upset but could not take their chances.

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Tamworth took Ange Postecoglou’s team to extra-time and had chances to win the game at the end of the 90

The goal nets look to have been tampered with. Behind Ange, a load of bloody hoons, to quote Alf Stewart, are making a nuisance of themselves, giving it the big one.

The teams take to the field. It looks brass monkeys in Tamworth. James Maddison is carrying out the team talk in the Tottenham huddle.

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• Walker has told manager he wishes to leave
• Full-back played no part in City’s 8-0 rout of Salford

Pep Guardiola is yet to decide if Kyle Walker will play for Manchester City again following the captain’s request to “explore the option” of playing abroad.

The 34-year-old was left out of the match-day squad for Saturday’s 8-0 FA Cup third round defeat of Salford City after informing the club on Thursday of his wish to depart.

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Mikel Arteta, whose side host Manchester United, is unlikely to be able to bolster his attack this month

“Gentlemen whose sole ability to build up a good side depends on the payment of heavy and exhorbitant [sic] transfer fees need not apply.”

This summer marks the 100th anniversary of the legendary Herbert Chapman’s appointment by Arsenal after the chairman, Sir Henry Norris, posted an advertisement in the Athletic News as they searched for a new manager. Times may have changed but the message must sound very familiar to Mikel Arteta.

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Manchester City’s third win on the bounce was all the sweeter due to their victims having unbreakable Manchester United connections. Salford City, owned by the Class of 92, David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Phil and Gary Neville, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes, were always primed to be easy fall guys and with 65 places between them and England’s champions, Karl Robinson’s men were cuffed aside as if in an exhibition.

The victory was decorated by a hat-trick from the Salford-born James McAtee and Jack Grealish’s first goal for more than a year, plus two from Jérémy Doku, the second a 69th-minute penalty after the Belgian’s shot was handled by Curtis Tilt. McAtee’s second featured a sharp finish, after receiving Phil Foden’s drilled delivery inside Salford’s area, while his third was a predator’s stab from Grealish’s cross.

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Salford-born James McAtee scored his first career hat-trick as Manchester City produced a clinical display of finishing

“Hi Rob,” says Peter Oh. “With a Tilt in central defence we’re certain to see plenty of pinball action in the Salford six-yard box.”

“This is why the FA Cup is great,” writes Mary Waltz. “Hellbound Plymouth rising from the dead, shocking a Premier League team. I know that Plymouth will not go far in this tourney, that a PL squad will win the cup. But seeing the occasional David upset a Goliath is brilliant.”

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• Nottingham Forest beat Luton 2-0 in repeat of 1959 final
• Leicester thrash QPR 6-2 as Brighton ease past Norwich

With their club legend, Mick Harford, helping to lead the team, Luton, who sacked manager Rob Edwards this week, travelled to Nottingham Forest for a repeat of 1959’s final. And just like that Wembley day, the Hatters departed in disappointment, losing 2-0 at the City Ground.

Ryan Yates, the Forest captain, was the driving force for Nuno Espirito Santo’s team, and scored the first goal for the Premier League high-fliers, a stooping header after a fine cross from Ramón Sosa. The Paraguayan then scored Forest’s second himself, sliding in from close range after Jota Silva’s pass from the right wing to follow up six consecutive Premier League wins with a comfortable stroll into the next round.

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Stanley performed well and had their chances, but Liverpool were never in serious danger of being on the wrong end of a shock

1 min: A long ball down the Stanley right. Walton competes with Endo but the makeshift Liverpool centre-back – who has plenty of experience in the position from his Bundesliga days, to be fair – ushers the ball out for a goal kick.

Accrington Stanley get the ball rolling. They’re kicking towards the Kop in this first half. “Who wouldn’t be delighted with a defensive line filled with Love and Awe?” coos Dean Kinsella.

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• 3G surface holds no fears after his experience in Fiji
• ‘Warming up, there were toads we had to remove’

Ange Postecoglou had to remove toads from a swampy pitch before one of the most pivotal games of his career, so Sunday’s FA Cup tie on non-league Tamworth’s 3G surface holds no fears for him.

The Tottenham manager has plenty of experience of artificial pitches, including from his time in Scotland with Celtic, and he said his players would train on one at the club’s Enfield HQ on Saturday. But Postecoglou’s mind went back to his first job as a manager at South Melbourne and a make-or-break fixture in unusual conditions. It was an Oceania qualification tie for the inaugural 2000 Club World Cup and Postecoglou has vivid memories not only about what was at stake but also the surface at the stadium in Fiji.

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West Ham threatened to spoil Aston Villa’s 150th birthday party, but a quick-fire second-half double meant Villa won just their second FA Cup game in nine years

1 min: Just 41 seconds on the clock, in fact, and West Ham nearly take the lead in spectacular style. The ball’s shuttled right to left via Wan-Bissaka, Summerville and Paqueta, the latter pearling a diagonal rising shot from 25 yards that misses the top-right corner by an inch or two. Not sure Olsen was getting there.

West Ham get the ball rolling. A reminder that this tie will be decided tonight, after extra time and penalty kicks if necessary. And there’s no VAR!

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