Scary Minnows

The 3rd round of the FA Cup is notorious for lower division teams (aka minnows) knocking off teams from the first and second tiers.  This year not so much, but there were still some scary moments.  Also, some interesting results from Matchweek 21 fixtures.

Almost Choking on the Bones

An own goal in extra time saved Spurs' butts
Reuters/Jason Cairnduff 

The biggest mismatch of the 3rd round was Tamworth (National League, ie 5th tier) versus Tottenham, a spread of 96 places across English football.  If all you saw was the final score - 3-0 favor Spurs - you might think all went as planned there.  Not exactly.  Tamworth are as small a fish in the pond as you can get but Spurs could barely swallow this minnow.  Though Tottenham fairly well dominated play, they could not score and normal time expired with the score 0-0.  It took another 10 minutes of extra time before Spurs finally got on the board and even that was an own goal.  Two more followed in the second half of extra time, making the final look all cushy but this was a hard ride for Tottenham.  Note also that in years past, a 0-0 result at 90 minutes would have resulted in a big pay day for Tamworth as there would have been a replay a few weeks later as opposed to continuing to extra time.  The replay would have been at the massive Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Tamworth would have shared in the gate receipts.  

Newcastle also had a little trouble with their minnow - League Two's Bromley.  The Magpies fell behind early and were only 1-1 at halftime.  Second half goals from Gordon and Osula made the viewing comfortable enough.  

FA Cup 3rd Round By the Numbers

I count 11 upsets out of the 32 matches.  Some barely qualify as upsets - see Blackburn (7th in Championship) over Middlesborough (5th in Championship) and there were three other cases of Championship sides beating teams higher than them in the table.  The two biggest in terms of "ranking difference" were Brentford (11th in EPL) losing to Plymouth (last in the Championship) and Doncaster (League Two) beating Hull City (Championship) - both matches were a spread of 33 places.  Here's the winning goal from Plymouth's upset.

Results by division are as follows:

EPL 17-3

Championship 9-15

League One 5-7

League Two 1-5

National League 0-2

Two of the three EPL losses were to other EPL sides - West Ham to Aston Villa and Arsenal to Man United. The latter was a wild one that United won on penalties.  Brentford was the only EPL side to lose to a lower division club (Plymouth).

The only real minnow left is Doncaster.  League One sides still in the competition are Birmingham, Exeter, Leyton Orient, Wigan and Wycombe; bigger than minnows but still in danger.  Should we call them sunfish?

Ball Don't Lie

 

That Arsenal - Man United FA Cup tie was a wild one.  United had gone down a man at 61 minutes and ceded the equalizer two minutes later.  A few minutes later,  Maguire "fouled" Havertz in the box.  Watching live, Dennis was sure that if there had been VAR, the penalty would have been overturned and Havertz shown the yellow for diving.  I didn't see it live but the replay here suggests he was probably right.  Odegaard missed the PK and somewhere Rasheed Wallace was smiling.  Also, funny how everybody says plays like this are why VAR is needed.  Bookmark those quotes for later.

You May Ask Yourself, How Did We Get Here?  (apologies to The Talking Heads)

Anthony Gordon - the model of attacking intent

Newcastle spent most of December in 12th place.  After Wednesday's 3-0 win over Wolves, the Magpies are now 4th in the table.  That was their sixth straight league win, a stretch in which they've outscored the opposition 18-1.  This is my beautiful team. So many things are going right.  Isak got two more goals against Wolves, has scored in eight straight, and is the third leading scorer behind only Salah and Haaland. We make his second goal this week's YouTubeableMoment; the pass from Guimaraes was perfect.  Anthony Gordon has a goal or an assist in each of those six wins.  Barnes and Murphy can create offense too.  The midfield trio of Guimaraes, Joelinton and Tonali are equally skilled at starting attacks and destroying other teams' attacks.   Hall and Livramento have the fullback spots covered.  Fabian Schar was out sick Wednesday but with Sven Botman back from injury, we were okay. Dan Burn is still not the fastest out there but at center back with the others around him, he's doing fine too.

Trying to remain clear-eyed about this resurgence.  Sure, the final was 3-0 but with some more clinical finishing by Wolves, this could have been a close match.  We've gone through patches where the finishing was awful so who knows if that will return.  We've been on the lucky side with injuries so far this year and that might not continue.  I'm also thinking that the Financial Fair Play rules might work to our benefit right now.  Contending for a Champions League berth, they might be tempted to overspend in the transfer market; they simply don't have that much to work with under the profit and sustainability regulations.

What Amad Ending

Amad to teammates: Guys, this is how you do it

Through 81 minutes, Man United trailed cellar dweller Southampton 0-1 and the Old Trafford crowd was more than restless.  Then, Amad Diallo decided enough is enough.  In the next 13 minutes he rescued the day for the Red Devils with a hat trick that doubled his goal output for the year.  Sure, the last one was a pure gift from Southampton defender Harwood-Bellis but the other two were legit, especially the game winner seen here; note the nice chip from Erickson to send him on goal.  With the bottom part of the mid-table so tight, the turnaround took United from 15th to 12th.  But mostly, it saved them from embarrassment.  Amad does appear to be the antidote to Antony and some of the other disappointments on the United squad.  

Dropped Points

There were some dropped points at the top of the table.  Liverpool could only manage a 1-1 draw against Nottingham Forest.  This was not the thriller we had hoped for - both Dennis and I will admit to napping during portions of the match.  Chelsea dropped two points as well, held to a 2-2 draw by Bournemouth and needing a 95th minute stoppage time goal to get even that.  Man City also dropped two points but in a different way; they coughed up a 2-0 lead to Brentford, surrendering goals at 82 and 92 minutes.   

Dropped points aside, of the top 10 only Fulham lost (2-3 to West Ham).  Arsenal got a 2-1 win over Spurs in what looked like a tepid North London derby.  I only saw the last 25 minutes but it didn't seem all that intense.  Villa got a serviceable 1-0 win over Everton in David Moyes' second debut as manager for the Toffees.  And Brighton took their time but eventually worked out a 2-0 win over Ipswich.

Life at the bottom of the table was tough, as all five - Everton, Wolves, Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton - lost.  The biggest gap in the table is now the seven points between 15th place Crystal Palace and 16th Everton.  

A Man For All Excuses

You may recall Mikel Arteta's explosion when Newcastle beat the Gunners on a goal in which "everybody in the stadium knew the ball had gone out" except when they saw photographic evidence after the match showing it was still in (details in this old BFS post).  Mikel was at it again this week, not with a rant but a novel explanation as to why Arsenal fell 0-2 to the Magpies at the Emirates last week in the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final.  The problem Arteta said was the ball.  I am not making this up.   Money quote:

'No, it's just different. It's very different to the Premier League ball and you have to adapt to that. It flies different... when you touch it, the grip is very different as well so you have to adapt to that.'

Arteta is appropriately being trolled on the internet for this.

Talkin' Union

 The wind chill is 13 degrees and there's a thin coating of snow on the ground, which means the MLS season is just around the corner.  Opening day is February 22nd at Orlando.

Can't say the news is encouraging.  First, the U got hit with a registration ban because they failed to pay a youth club a percentage of the transfer fee when they obtained Jose Riasco in March 2022.  The full story is here.  Note the amount of the missed payment is $700.  Given that the payment has been made, the consensus is that the ban will be lifted quickly.  However, this is the type of administrative screw-up that Union are famous for, like always having visa problems with foreign signings.  Doesn't instill the greatest of confidence in the front office.

Less encouraging is the state of the roster.  See this analysis from The Inquirer's Jonathan Tannenwald.  There's really not been much activity for a club that finished 12th out of 15 in the Eastern Conference.  Not clear to me why we would expect any kind of meaningful improvement in the standings without some important additions.  Fortunately, it does sound like they haven't been ruled out.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

BFS Artistic Director Laura O sends along this Instagram clip in which one of the Tottenham mascots (the kids who accompany the players on the pitch for the introductions) makes a brutally honest observation.  This must have been just before Spurs squared off against Liverpool in last week's EFL Cup semi-final.  

Champions League Is Back

In addition to Matchweek 22, we get the seventh round of first round play in the European competitions, which means you'll have something to do as mid-week temperatures plummet into the teens single digits (without taking into account windchill).  

The EPL schedule is nicely spread out over three days so we won't have the situation we had on Wednesday when Newcastle, Aston Villa and Spurs were all on at the same time.  Newcastle have the early Saturday match so we'll be up at 7:30 to see them face Bournemouth; it is on USA so you could cheat a little and get up at maybe 8 instead.  The Magpies are in form, at home and heavily favored; what could go wrong?

Three choices at 10 am.  USA has West Ham versus Crystal Palace and this looks to be the best choice for a competitive match.  Brentford - Liverpool and Leicester - Fulham don't sound as exciting.  We're pumped about the feature 12:30 match on NBC as Aston Villa travel to London to face Arsenal.  Opta has the Gunners has huge favorites (61% win, 21% draw) but we see a closer match than that; the Villans are rarely blown out and usually give teams like this a hard time.

Sunday at 9 am is a bit crowded.  The TV game is Everton - Spurs but you could do Man United - Brighton or Nottingham Forest - Southampton on Peacock.  I can come up with reasons to watch each. The first two could be more competitive than you think but it's also fun to watch Nottingham Forest continue their Cinderella run in the top four.  The 11:30 match, on USA, looks like a car crash, with Ipswich hosting Man City.  The week concludes with Chelsea - Wolves at 3 pm on Monday.

The Champions League gets to the business end of the first round with the seventh of eight first round matches.  Teams will be looking to seal up places for automatic advancement to the knockout stage (top 8) or at least the playoffs to get to the knockout stage (9th through 24th).  Tuesday we can watch Monaco - Aston Villa at 12:45, then Liverpool - LOSC at 3 pm.  Wednesday we'll have to choose been Arsenal - Dinamo Zagreb or PSG - Man City, both at 3 pm.  We're going with the latter as both are fighting for a place in the top 24, with PSG currently on the outside looking at 25th and MCI barely in at 22.

Europa League is in a similar situation.  Most of their matches are Thursday.  Tottenham face Hoffenheim on the road at 12:45 while Man United host Rangers at 3 pm.  Both are likely to at least advance to the playoff rounds but wins for each could put them in good shape for automatic advancement to the knockout phase.

Just checked the forecast again.  Wind chills below zero on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Just stay inside and watch Champions League.