da betobet： My word, it was the weekend to roll out the celebrity fan, wasn’t it? Credit to Richard Osman though – not only did he actually know something about Fulham, he also delivered my favourite line of the weekend in expressing his disappointment in Pochettino NOT disrespecting the FA Cup and selecting such a strong side.
da poker： Tim Vine, though. I’m sorry, were there too many memorable Sutton games in the last decade for you to look back through to do some very basic research? If you end up further down the list than Robbie Savage for “top pundit of the weekend” you really need to look at yourself in the mirror. Mind you, I think Tim was just pleased to be back on BBC One.
Anyway. Magic happened, didn’t it? Take Lincoln for example. This was a tough one for me because Sean Dyche is probably the last manager I would wish a cup giant killing on, but then on the same side of the same coin, Joey Barton is the first player I would wish a cup giant killing on.
Joey showed his class, hey? Trying to get Lincoln’s ‘danger man’ sent off. And I know, the use of inverted commas there immediately gets the patronising police all worked up, but Matt Rhead used to flick the ball on for a guy I played with at Uni to score all the goals.
That’s the level we are talking about. Barton was hardly trying to wind up Luis Suarez. But what a performance by Lincoln and the Cowley Brothers who, up until this weekend, could have passed as a building firm, butchers, lawyers or anything at all. Lincoln are in the Quarter Finals where they will meet Arsenal at the Emirates, a fixture that means Lincoln will have to go some to find financial ruin in the next 20 seasons. As I said, magic of the cup and all that.
For anyone out there that put actual money on my tip of Leicester winning the FA Cup, then you are more of a mug than I. I talk about these things, but I rarely follow through.
Was Millwall beating them an actual shock? Probably not, but credit to Neil Harris’s team who will now face Tottenham in the last eight. Will we see Leicester miraculously reappear tonight in the Champions League? No, they are going to get hammered over two legs and get relegated.
I’m going to get one tip right. My favourite part of the Millwall game was Ben Chilwell being “too scared” to take throw ins because of the Millwall fans being their usual welcoming selves. Take note Jurgen, as you seem determined to buy this man with nerves of, er, steel.
Oxford will have felt somewhat unfortunate to have played Middlesbrough on the weekend where they decided to get an entire monthly quota of goals into one match. Boro scored three? Are you sure? Worse still, they let in two and Oxford had one wrongly disallowed.
Of course, we know what happened moments after the refereeing blunder. Yes, Boro went up the other end and went 2-0 up. Fair play to Oxford, they frightened the Teesiders.
Wolves watched all this unfurl and wondered whether they could trump their performance against Liverpool and remove Chelsea from the competition. Having beaten Liverpool with extreme pace up front, Wolves must have been licking their lips when they saw John Terry named in Chelsea’s back three.
But sadly for the Molineux faithful, the dream was somewhat clinically killed off. John Terry is in severe danger of lifting the FA Cup as his goodbye to English football.
Some 0-0’s are rather good, and there wasn’t much between Huddersfield and Manchester City. In fact, if the game had ended up 5-3 to either side, that would have been a fair reflection. David Wagner has Huddersfield playing like a disciple of Klopp and Pep still seems to be determined to crow bar players into strange positions.
Either way. City were saving their goals for Monaco and have to face a replay.
As we mentioned, Richard Osman went home disappointed as Harry Kane’s hat-trick saw off Fulham. The best moment of the game was the Spurs fans singing for Arsene to stay in charge over the road. They do realise that every season Wenger has been there, Arsenal have finished above Spurs, don’t they?
Jose played his aces midway through the second half at Ewood Park and threw on Zlatan and Pogba. Naturally, United went on to win because that is what they do now. The result cost Owen Coyle his job. That was a little harsh, but it did give Sky the chance to pay Steve Cotterill to do his job interview on live TV.
Cotterill started answering the question, “so do you fancy the Blackburn job” as I popped to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. As I returned, he was still going. I will take that as a yes then.
Finally, #PieGate. As my good friend Jim pointed out on Tales from the Top Flight earlier – firstly, it was a pasty and not a pie, and secondly, can we stop calling everything gate? It’s bloody annoying. The whole Sutton game had something of a circus about it and Arsenal gently slipped through.
As for investigating the whole betting thing? Arsenal know they are always odds on NOT to win the league every season and manage to not win the league. Is anyone investigating that?
No, didn’t think so.
[ad_pod id=’Shoot-Xmas-Survey’ align=’left’]
[ad_pod id=’playwire’ align=’center’]