The FA Cup 5th Round Continues.....

This weekend saw the fifth round of the FA Cup played with Bristol Rovers at home to Southampton in the early kick off on Saturday. Rovers seemed to be the better side throughout the match but looked like they were destined for a draw, especially when Rickie Lamberts headed goal in the 70th minute was disallowed due to a small push on Darren Powell. With just 6 minutes to go though Lambert scored the only goal of the match via a deflected free kick sending them deservedly to the next round.

Another 4 games kicked off at 3 o’clock, most noticeably Barnsley and Liverpool which ended up in something of an upset. Liverpool decided to play with a slightly weakened side without Torres and with Gerrard on the bench though they still looked formidable throughout. That didn’t matter in the end though after a mammoth performance by Barnsleys keeper, Luke Steele, who made several critical saves throughout the match and even when he was defeated early in the second half his defence managed to clear the ball. Not to take anything away from Barnsley, they all played extremely well scoring 2 goals when Liverpool could only manage 1 and creating the biggest upset of the competition so far.

Chelsea did what was expected of them and managed to beat Huddersfield 3-1 after an inspired performance by Frank Lampard. Huddersfield did their best and in the first half looked stable at the back but they just couldn’t keep up against the might of Chelsea for the full 90 minutes and the second half seemed to go all Chelsea’s way.

Cardiff and Wolves are neck and neck in the Championship table so this match was expected to be close but when Cardiff went 2-0 up early on in the game they seemed to just sit back and defend their lead. This gave Wolves plenty of the ball but they couldn’t break down Cardiff’s defence and the rest of the match went by uneventfully. Coventry took on West Brom in anything but an uneventful game with WBA scoring 5 goals and never really looking troubled. Coventry were unlucky in that the vast majority of decisions kept going against them including a clearly unfair red card which barely resembled a foul but never did enough to make West Brom break a sweat.

The big match of the day was at Old Trafford where Man Utd were playing host to Premiership rivals Arsenal. Both teams were resting key players due to European games this week but still fielded sides which would make any team in the league tremble. As it happens, Arsenal looked like they didn’t even turn up with Man Utd in outstanding form, particularly Rooney and Nani both of whom paid for showboating on the day. Rooney got a yellow card for time wasting with some fancy footwork and Nani received a kick off the ball from Gallas after teasing him with some great ball control. This couldn’t dampen their spirits though and they went on to win 4-0 but it could and perhaps should have been many more.

Sunday saw the final 2 games of the competition take place, firstly with Sheffield United taking on Middlesbrough in a scrappy match in which neither team shined and ended in a 0-0 draw and a replay. Lastly came Preston v Portsmouth with the hosts playing slightly better out of the 2. It even looked like Preston were going to go on and win at one point when they were awarded a penalty on the hour but David James made a great save which kept his team in the competition. It looked like the match was going to end up like the earlier match with a replay until the dying seconds of the game when Carter scored an own goal putting Preston rather unluckily out of the cup.

Paul Howard
Livesports Writing Team