FA Cup Still Has The Romance...

Who said the romance of the F.A Cup is dead? It has been an amazing tournament this year, only one Premiership team remain and all of the top four clubs have failed to make it through to this year’s semi-finals.
The biggest shock of the weekend came via Liverpool conquers, Barnsley. No-one expected them to even threaten Chelsea, but against all the odds they defeated holders Chelsea 1-0 with a goal from Odejayi, the powerful forward hadn’t scored in 28 of his previous games, what a way to end his goal drought. Barnsley’s character shone throughout, they didn’t just win, they dominated for vast periods and, unlike at Anfield where they were quite lucky and could have easily lost by four or five goals on another day, but actually deserved their victory against Chelsea. It really did seem to be a heartless, lacklustre and poor performance by Chelsea’s millionaires; maybe they thought they could just walk it.
Another tie, another shock, another woeful Premiership performance, in this case, Cardiff’s deserved 2-0 victory over Middlesbrough; the Bluebirds completely outplayed Gareth Southgate’s men and cruised into the semi finals.
Saturday’s other tie took place at Old Trafford in a controversial 90 minutes. The first incident occurred before half time when Ronaldo was bulldozed over by Distin, no penalty was the referee’s decision which infuriated the Man United Camp. After some domination by United and some missed sitters the second controversial incident, with Tomasz Kuszak already on at half time, United had no substitute keeper, so things took a turn for the worse when Milan Baros was brought down in the area and the keeper giving him marching orders. Rio Ferdinand had to go in goal, but Portsmouth converted their penalty and held on to book their place in the semi finals.
If anyone saw Ferguson or Queiros’ post match interviews, its obvious there will be an investigation into their comments.
The final 6th round tie took place on Sunday, with West Brom comfortably beating Bristol Rovers 5-1 in a hard fought game.
It’s good to see teams who don’t have much glory or get this far in competitions, especially the teams from the lower leagues get a real shot of getting to the final of the cup, or even win. Even if they don’t get to the final, all the players will savour for most, a one in a lifetime opportunity to play at Wembley.
It’s easy to forget that there were some Premiership matches this weekend. Liverpool looked simply magnificent against new relegation contenders Newcastle, a well deserved 3-0 win, which to be honest could have been much more with Gerard and Torres picking holes in the Newcastle defence. A decisive win for Liverpool in their quest to consolidate fourth place.
But Everton are still keeping the pressure on with a 1-0 win in an evenly contested match against Sunderland, it could have gone either way with both teams coming close on numerous occasions. But Everton keep their impressive run of form going. It will be very interesting to see how that battle for fourth place develops.
Tottenham will be please with their 4-0 win over an ever so increasingly struggling West Ham side. It was Tottenham’s first victory since their League Cup triumph. Berbatov and Spurs will be hoping to take this form to Eindhoven this week. West Ham should seriously start to think about rectifying their form, otherwise they could join Newcastle and slip into that relegation battle.
Reading took another step in the hope of achieving safety in the Premiership after an excellent 2-0 victory over Manchester City, who are another team struggling for form in previous weeks.
Blackburn and Fulham played out a 1-1 draw, Blackburn deservedly took the lead, but Fulham fought back well to equalise. It was another controversial match, tackles were starting to get reckless and a few players lost their discipline, which has sparked an enquiry by the FA.
Wigan hosted Arsenal in the final game of a long weekend of football. The final score was 0-0. Arsenal looked unusually flat considering their amazing performance against Milan in midweek. Wigan should have had a penalty, but that was about the only incident in an uninteresting evening football match. Man United will be pleased with this result as the gap between the two club closes to just a couple of point with Man United playing less matches.
Still an open table after this weekend’s action, some teams in and around the relegation spots got good results, which draws the likes of Newcastle and West Ham ever so closer to the scrap down there. Next week will make interesting viewing, as will the FA Cup Semi Finals which takes place on the 5th and 6th of April. Good luck to all the teams left who have battled and played so well to reach that far.