The Weekend Review: the weirdly disappointing FA Cup quarter-finals
Four games, and little to say about many of them. That's what happens when the scent of Wembley gets in the air and you're not used to it.
This piece usually goes out to paying subscribers only, but much as the FA Cup is shown on free-to-air television, I’ve opened up my brief quarter-final review to everybody. This piece will be fully available on Friday morning, but paying subscribers get a full round-up from the Championship, Leagues One & Two, the National League, its two regional divisions and this week the top of the Southern Combination Football League, where we have a champion.
It wasn’t quite a feeling of over-excitement, but the near-complete absence of ‘Big Six’ teams did add a certain something to this weekend’s FA Cup Quarter-Finals. Except, of course, there’s a catch. Something like this happened in 2008, and that time around we were greeted with two disappointing semi-finals and a borderline unwatchable Final between Portsmouth and Cardiff City, as teams shut up shop under the pressure that came with the glare of that level of attention.
It felt a little like there was a repeat of this weekend, as teams failed to match some of the hype that’s been surrounding them and ended up letting themselves down a little. The weekend started with perhaps the closest that it got to a surprise result, with Crystal Palace’s comprehensive 3-0 at Fulham on Saturday lunchtime. Fulham were the better team for the first half hour or so but failed to take their chances, but as soon as Palace got their noses ahead they never looked in much doubt of reaching the next round. Goals from Eberechi Eze, Ibrahima Sarr and Eddie Nketiah were enough to see them through.
The late Saturday evening game pitched Brighton against Nottingham Forest and ended up going to the only penalty shootout of the weekend. There are, of course, two Brightons; there’s good Brighton, who play open, fluid, attacking football and can threaten goals from five or six different players, and then there is bad Brighton, who get to around 35 yards from the opposition goal and then try to pass the ball around until losing possession of the ball. Hello bad Brighton, it feels as though it’s been a while. Forest goalkeeper Matz Sels saved penalties from Jack Hinshelwood and Diego Gomez, and Ryan Yates scored the goal to put them through to the semi-finals for the first time since 1991, while Brighton’s only ever major trophy remains the 1910 Charity Shield.
To the extent that a ‘giant-killing’ could be hoped for, this was to be found at Deepdale on Sunday lunchtime when the only EFL survivors at this stage of the competition, Preston North End, took on Aston Villa. This was, of course, a fixture absolutely dripping with the history of the game in this country. At the end of the first ever season of the Football League in 1888/89, Villa were the runners-up to Preston’s “Invincibles” team. On this occasion, however, Preston lived down to their somewhat pallid recent reputation, playing very much like a mid-table Championship team against a Villa team who are still pushing in two cups this season.
It briefly looked as though there might be something for fans of schadenfreude when Evanilson gave Bournemouth the lead midway through the first half of their game against Manchester City, but the plucky away team underdogs threw on a gazillion pounds worth of substitutes during the second half and ended up winning 2-1. Ah, the romance of the Cup, eh?
Perhaps the most curious moment of the FA Cup weekend came with the draw for the semi-finals, which took place between the Villa and City games. There was, of course, a time when draws were made on a Tuesday lunchtime by FA executives in some broom cupboard at Lancaster Gate or other, but that’s all different nowadays, and this weekend we were treated to the somewhat strange sight of Joe Hart more or less doing it on his own (minds out the gutters, ya filthy animals), with about as little ceremony as could be mustered from it all. Anyway, Nottingham Forest will play Manchester City and Crystal Palace will play Aston Villa, both matches at Wembley, because money is more important than anything else.
With no Premier League football, we’re forced straight down into the Championship, where it was a difficult weekend for Leeds United, a stoppage-time equaliser from Swansea City scored in the 97th minute was enough to earn the visitors a 2-2 draw which was, coupled with a 3-1 win for Sheffield United against Coventry City the night before, enough to leave the Blades at the top of the table and Leeds only hanging on in second place from Burnley, who beat Bristol City 1-0 at Turf Moor.
With seven games left to play, there are nine teams within six points of the two remaining de facto playoff places. Coventry stay fifth despite their defeat at Bramall Lane on Friday night and West Bromwich Albion stay sixth despite their 1-0 defeat at Norwich City, but this left the chasing pack with the opportunity to close the gap and this they… didn’t quite manage. Indeed, only two of those nine clubs—Middlesbrough and the aforementioned Norwich City—could manage a win. It’s obviously counterintuitive to say that these teams are playing as though one of them want promotion to the promised land, but it sure as hell looked it last weekend.
Things are tightening at the other end of the table. None of the bottom three lost, with Plymouth Argyle drawing at Watford, Luton Town winning at Hull City, and Derby County having a weekend off because they were due to be playing FA Cup semi-finalists Preston North End. Four points now separate the six clubs above bottom of the table Plymouth, and of the four clubs above the bottom three only Stoke City could manage a win.
At the top of League One, Big Money kept up its impressive recent run with comfortable wins for Birmingham City and Wrexham against Shrewsbury Town and Exeter City respectively, though Wycombe Wanderers doggedly hang on in third following a 1-0 win against Lincoln City. They’re three points adrift of FC Hollywood in third place, but would leapfrog Wrexham with a win from their game in hand. The smart money, however, is surely still following the big money.
There were mixed fortunes for those still chasing a playoff place. With a six point gap below fifth-placed Stockport County, there may only be one place still available and there are now five teams chasing that place. Reading still sixth following a 3-1 win against Peterborough United but the two below them both lost, Huddersfield 4-0 at Charlton Athletic and Bolton Wanderers 2-1 in their Lancashire derby at Blackpool.
That result made Blackpool one of two clubs who might have felt they’d squandered their playoff chances only to have been revitalised by two straight wins. The other is Leyton Orient, whose 1-0 win against Stevenage on Thursday night (!) kept them three points from a playoff place not long after a run of five straight defeats seemed to have consigned those hopes to the dustbin for another year. The only real change at the foot of League One came with a second straight win for Crawley Town, whose 4-0 win at Rotherham United somewhat hilariously cost Steve Evans his job. Crawley are now six points from safety.
The top of League Two remains congested and confusing. Walsall should have been knocked off the top of the table for the first time since the start of December following a 1-1 draw against Wimbledon—their third draw in a row—but Bradford City failed to take advantage of this and stay second following a goalless draw at Accrington Stanley. Port Vale and Doncaster Rovers jumped back up to third and fourth with wins against Crewe Alexandra and Carlisle United respectively, while a win for Notts County at Newport County kept them two points from an automatic promotion place despite being sixth in the table.
Carlisle are now nine points from safety and sinking fast at the bottom of the table, but there was better news for Morecambe, whose 1-0 win against Swindon Town was their first in five. Unfortunately, though, they’re no clearer to safety than they were before because Tranmere Rovers in third from bottom place also won, 2-0 against Cheltenham Town on Friday night. Tranmere and Morecambe were, it turned out, the only teams in the entire bottom half of League Two to win at the weekend.
But who will replace them? Barnet. It’ll be Barnet. Their 3-1 win against Gateshead left them nine points clear at the top of the table with six to play, and the goal they conceded was the first following six consecutive clean sheets. York City hang on obdurately in second place with a 3-0 win against Wealdstone.
As for the other promotion place, well, there are now effectively six teams chasing three remaining playoff places in the National League. Losing at Barnet was Gateshead’s sixth defeat in a row, so they’re falling fast, though Oldham Athletic and Halifax Town were beaten as well. All this made for a good weekend for Southend United, who’ve closed the gap to 7th place and the final playoff spot to a single point, and Tamworth, whose 2-0 win against Eastleigh put them just three points from that particular dotted line.
At the bottom of the table, the already-relegated Ebbsfleet United continued their recent (very much too late) revival with a 2-2 draw against the stuttering Altrincham to take their unbeaten run to three games. Boston United lifted themselves out of the relegation places with a fifth win in their last six games, this time at home against Sutton United. This win was enough to lift them above Wealdstone. The two teams immediately above Boston, Dagenham & Redbridge and Woking, also eased their relegation concerns with wins against Maidenhead United and Braintree Town respectively.
We’re little closer to establishing the identities of those who will replace the four that fall from the bottom of that league this season. Worthing blew their chance to open up a bit of a gap at the top of the National League South when they lost their game in hand on the rest with a 1-0 defeat at Hornchurch last Tuesday, but they did stay three points clear at the top with a nervy 2-0 win against Hampton & Richmond on Saturday. Dorking Wanderers stay second with a 3-1 win against Eastbourne, another of those top six sides. Three defeats in a row seem to have finally put the kibosh on any realistic likelihood of Boreham Wood winning the title.
In the National League North, it’s still one from three after the top three all won at the weekend. Scunthorpe United remain two points clear at the top following a 2-0 win against Southport, while Kidderminster Harriers remain second after beating Peterborough Sports 3-0 and Brackley Town hang on in third with a 2-0 win against Scarborough Athletic. At the other end of that table, crisis club Farsley Celtic are now just one defeat from mathematical relegation after they lost for the twelfth time in a row, this time 4-0 at home to Hereford. You get the feeling that they have bigger fish to fry, at present.
And finally, those of you who read this regularly will be fully aware that the Southern Combination Football League is the local county league around here. I was at a game at its second division on Saturday, of course. But at the top of the Premier Division, we have champions with five games to spare. Hassocks’ 3-0 win against second-placed Crowborough Athletic left them 16 (SIXTEEN) points clear at the top of the table with five games left to play. Many congratulations to Hassocks, which is a very fine place to watch football indeed, as we established last season, though I’m going to need some sort of ‘No Clowns’ guarantee if I’m going back there next season )see the linked post for further details - suffice to say that I still don’t want a clown to eat me. It’ll be the first time, for the record, that this particular club has played Isthmian League football before.