Category: Football (Soccer)

• ‘Sometimes you need to lose to grow,’ says manager
• Manchester United face Fulham in FA Cup on Sunday

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.

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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

• Read Will Unwin’s match report from the Etihad Stadium

“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.

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• Mateta hurt during FA Cup fifth round victory
• Striker discharged from hospital with 25 stitches

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.”

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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• All the latest football news before the weekend’s action
• FA Cup fifth round: 10 things to look out for | Email Barry

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 …

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