FA Cup News
In the squeaky posterior time of this FA Cup fifth-round penalty shootout, Victor Lindelöf and Joshua Zirkzee were the unfortunate ones whose kicks were saved, ending Manchester United’s trophy defence.
Fulham won the shootout 4-3 with a kick to spare and the visitors marginally deserved their passage, though this was a slog through 120 minutes of meagre fare that was no advertisement for the world’s oldest knockout competition.
Continue reading...Calvin Bassey gave Fulham the lead and Bruno Fernandes equalised, before Bernd Leno made decisive shoot-out saves from Victor Lindelöf and Joshua Zirkzee
Fulham, meanwhile, will have restored players who were rested for this match. With their Premier League status secure, they’ve no reason not to go all-out for the Cup, and given the teams left, they’ve a decent chance of making something happen. Bassey is exactly the kind of centre-back Hojlund can spend an entire match fruitless fighting; Robinson is a one-man left-flank; and Iwobi has excellent ball-carrying capabilities.
Amorim has little in the way of options. He’ll be devo’d about Dorgu, banned for the first of three games – already, his new signing had made a difference, giving United width, balance and physicality, doing the right things and building a promising partnership with Bruno Fernandes. Mazraoui, though a lovely footballer, offers little attacking threat from wing-back, likewise Diogo Dalot on the other side, while there could scarcely be less pace behind the nominal centre-forward, Rasmus Hojlund, both Eriksen and Joshua Zirzkee looking like they run in a wind-tunnel.
Continue reading...When the dust finally settled on a tie featuring two red cards and an endless stream of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it drama crowned by Danny Welbeck’s extra-time winner, Brighton were in the quarter-finals.
Newcastle’s Anthony Gordon, meanwhile, was out of this month’s Carabao Cup final after being shown a straight red card deep in a second half that also featured Alexander Isak’s late withdrawal, accompanied by a physiotherapist, just to exacerbate Eddie Howe’s worries.
Continue reading...Ruben Amorim has said the challenges faced in his turbulent first three months in charge of Manchester United have made him a “more complete manager”. The Portuguese took over in November and has overseen five victories in 16 Premier League matches, leaving them 14th.
One of those wins was at Fulham, who visit Old Trafford on Sunday in the FA Cup fifth round. The holders face a crucial week with a last-16 first leg trip to Real Sociedad in the Europa League on Thursday with redundancies off the pitch and poor performances on it.
Continue reading...The hosts were forced to come from behind against a spirited Argyle side but a brace from Nico O’Reilly and Kevin De Bruyne’s late strike saw them into the quarter-final draw
“It’s Manchester City, it’s away, the team which has dominated the Premier League for the last seven or eight years so it truly feels like something very, very big,” said Plymouth’s manager in his pre-match press conference.
Continue reading...Oliver Glasner described the challenge by the Millwall goalkeeper, Liam Roberts, that sent Jean-Philippe Mateta to hospital as “a very, very serious foul play”, but said he did not believe Roberts had intended to cause any injury.
“It was tough to see it,” Glasner, the Crystal Palace manager, said. “I don’t want to see it any more. Just imagine if he hits his face straight, with all this power and the studs, it could have been the end of JP’s career.”
Continue reading...As he prepares to face Manchester United in the FA Cup on Sunday, the midfielder talks tactics, up and downs and being part of Norway’s ‘little golden generation’
As Fulham finalise their preparations for Sunday’s trip to Manchester United in the fifth round of the FA Cup, Sander Berge is thinking about how to handle adversity. “It taught me a lot about myself,” the midfielder says, recalling how spirits could have sagged when he was part of unsuccessful fights for survival with Burnley and Sheffield United.
“When you’re struggling every day it’s difficult. That’s a time to show character more than ever. You demand the ball, you take pride in going out there and showing you have the ability to stay at that level. It’s about who you want to be.”
Continue reading...After head coach’s failure to recognise the need to upgrade an ageing squad last summer, the FA Cup is their last hope
In Manchester City having only the FA Cup to chase we see the product of the club’s failed summer recruitment, ill fortune with injury and the ravage of time to a core of Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering squad.
While Julián Álvarez’s club-record £81.5m sale to Atlético Madrid in the close season bulged transfer coffers, only Savinho was recruited for £30m, alongside the return of the now 34-year-old Ilkay Gündogan for free, as Guardiola decided no major replenishment was needed.
Continue reading...Aston Villa became the first team to book their place in this season’s quarter-finals by easing past a battling Cardiff
3 mins: The ball breaks to Bailey in the box, and he executes a very snazzy 360-degree spin. Doesn’t lead to much, but must have felt awesome.
2 mins: Perry Ng takes an age over a throw-in, and then chucks it at a teammate off whom it bounces into touch.
Continue reading...Ukraine defender on his parents enduring the war, the generosity of fans and facing Manchester City in the FA Cup
Suddenly talking about celebrating tackles with gladiatorial grace and the prospect of swapping shirts with Erling Haaland feels rather insignificant. Maksym Talovierov, known as Maxi, is detailing the sobering reality of life since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “It’s really hard because for three years every morning I wake up and I see a lot of notifications about rockets and missiles in every city, including Kyiv, where my parents are,” the Plymouth defender says. “I text them immediately to see how they’re doing. ‘Are you in the [underground] car park? Are you in the metro?’ Because when they [Russia] are bombing and it’s dangerous, that’s where they go because they are the closest things to safe zones.”
The 24-year-old has not seen his mother, Maryna, and father, Vadym, a former professional footballer, for three and a half years. “Sometimes they might not have a connection or wifi and then it’s stressful because they don’t respond and you don’t know what’s going on. On the news it might say: ‘In this area of Kyiv, five rockets.’ But you never know exactly where.
Continue reading...A club now safely moored after years of instability renews their slow-burn rivalry with Crystal Palace in FA Cup
“By undertaking a Freudian analysis of Millwall fandom, combined with a Lacanian interpretation of the death drive … it is possible to perceive Millwall fandom as a form of symbolic masochism.” Hmm. OK then. That sounds, on balance, like a strong disapprove. Although to be fair the walk from New Cross can be a bit bleak at this time of year.
The great days of anthropologically vital city-centre rumbles may be long gone, but there is unlikely to be a shortage of this kind of stuff any time soon.
Continue reading...Two founder Football League members reconvene in the fifth round on Saturday, adding to a history of Cup rivalry
If the FA Cup has a golden age, the 1950s and 1960s can lay a considerable claim. A time of schoolboys being able to list the era’s classic finals dipped in Pathé news sepia may have passed but reminiscing harks back to a time when towns rather than cities were central to English football. Specifically, towns in Lancashire, Saturday’s fifth-round lunchtime kick-off at Deepdale recalling times when Preston and Burnley competed for Cup glory.
North End and the Clarets may not be the fiercest Lancastrian rivalry – Blackpool and Blackburn are their respective bete noires – but it remains hotly contested. The pair met just a fortnight ago for a 0-0 Championship draw that boiled over, Burnley’s midfielder Hannibal Mejbri accusing the Preston forward Milutin Osmajic of racial abuse and Osmajic “strongly refuting” the claims. The matter remains with the Football Association.
Continue reading...Andy Hunter: Liverpool made a loss of £57m last season after missing out on the Champions League while wages and overhead costs increased, the club’s latest accounts have revealed …
Newcastle United v Brighton: With their team already in the Carabao Cup final, due to face Brighton in the last 16 of the FA Cup on Sunday and hopeful of securing qualification for the Champions League with a strong league finish, the fitness – or lack therof – of their striker Alexander Isak is uppermost in the thoughts of most Newcastle fans after he missed his side’s midweek defeat at Liverpool with a groin injury. Over to you, Eddie Howe …
Continue reading...VAR is back (to save us all), Plymouth are plotting another upset and Cardiff’s Anwar El Ghazi returns to Villa Park
The trip to Aston Villa looks tricky for Cardiff City, whose main focus is avoiding relegation to League One. Anwar El Ghazi, at least, was delighted with the draw. The Dutchman spent four years at Villa, clinching promotion at Wembley at the end of a loan season in 2018-19 before a permanent move from Lille. El Ghazi scored Villa’s first goal in a playoff final victory over Derby, with John McGinn and Tyrone Mings the only survivors from that team. Both clubs’ futures hinged on that game under the arch: Derby spiralled and faced administration before dropping into the third tier. El Ghazi can count on a hero’s welcome at Villa Park on Friday. Villa, who will visit Club Brugge for a Champions League last 16 first-leg tie on Tuesday, hope to advance to the FA Cup quarter-finals for the first time since ending as runners-up to Arsenal 10 years ago. Ben Fisher
Aston Villa v Cardiff, Friday 8pm (all times GMT)
Crystal Palace v Millwall, Saturday 12.15pm
Bournemouth v Wolves, Saturday 3pm
Manchester City v Plymouth, Saturday 5.45pm
Continue reading...Plymouth will be hoping for another slice of luck in the FA Cup when they face Manchester City on Saturday
There is nothing wrong with a fluke in sport. Cliff Thorburn will forever have a place in Crucible history, having achieved the first 147 at the venue in the World Championship. But how many people will recall that the first of his 36 balls was a fluke? From good luck to “good luck, mate” in a little over 15 minutes of pure theatre.
Football is no different. There are numerous examples of fortune playing a key role in memorable matches: Jimmy Greenhoff’s winner in the 1977 FA Cup final that denied Liverpool the chance of a treble; Darren Bent’s beach ball goal; Tommy Boyd in France 98; Bruno Bellone’s penalty at Mexico 86.
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