Neil Warnock Cares Not For Your Money

Great, Now I Have to Pull My Own Hair Out

Crystal Palace played Aston Villa to a 2-2 draw in the FA Cup yesterday. It was actually pretty darned entertaining football. Unless of course you’re Neil Warnock. Then you’re just pissed off.

With Palace up 2-1, Stiliyan Petrov scored off a corner in the 87th to earn Villa the replay.

The problem is the corner probably never should have been given. READ MORE

FA Cup Round 5 Boot Room

Ram Girl Is Excited by the Majesty of the FA Cup!

Well, well looks like yet more FA Cup this weekend. You know what that means, right?

Yup, EPL teams putting forth their reserves against Championship sides. And to think, this is the only competition that Portsmouth actually has a chance at winning!

Oh I know, I know. Nothing wrong with the FA Cup. After all, it’s the oldest trophy competition in the universe.  It presents magical moments, like seeing an Exeter City player nutmeg C-Ron. And hey, today gives me an excuse to run a photo of the Derby Ram Girl of the Week (god bless the 1970s, when bras were optional) in honor of Derby’s fixture against Birmingham.

Fixtures and your comments after the hop.

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FA Cup 4th Round Replay Liveblog: Leeds United v. Tottenham Hotspur

Will Jermaine Beckford hurt Spurs once again?

Not long until kick-off, and this game has plenty of intrigue. For example, can Spurs halt a mini-slide that has seen them dropping points in the EPL (1-2-1 in January)? Can Matthew Dawson not concede a 96th minute penalty that got them here in the first place?

Leeds have been stumbling too (1 win in their last 6 games after that famous win at Old Trafford); just ask Ned about the latest League One standings, so this game stands as mildly pivotal for either side. Whoever wins gets a bit more confidence heading down the stretch (not to mention a few hundred grand for making it to the 5th Round of the FA Cup), while the loser continues to wade through self-doubt.

Lineups and pith after the jump. Stick around, won’t you?
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Goals Are Like Buses For Danny Butterfield

Goal machine?

Crystal Palace full back Danny Butterfield has been at the South Laaaandon club for 7 years, playing over 252 games and scoring just 7 goals during that time. However, last night Butterfield pulled off the unimaginable, scoring 3 times in just 6 minutes and, to make it all the more satisfying, it was against Premiership opposition.

His side beat Wolves 3-1 to knock them out of the FA Cup on what turned out to be a disastrous night for EPL teams. Wigan lost 2-0 at home to League Two Notts County (I wonder if Sven took the team talk?), while in the EPL itself, Chelsea needed a Drogba free kick on his ACoN return to take a point from their game with Hull.

Anyway, back to Butterfield and his remarkable 6 minute hat-trick.

Goals after the jump.

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Roman Abramovich Successfully Rigs Another Tournament Draw

Yep, It'll Probably Be Them Again This Year

Credit where it’s due – the Blues of Stamford Bridge receive yet another peachy draw in a tournament they could well now attempt to win.

The FA Cup is no longer a prime jewel in the crown for the biggest clubs, hell-bent as they are on attaining European glory. Wenger ran out a youth XI against Stoke City — justified in full by the upcoming nightmare run of EPL fixtures against United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Aston Villa — as the EPL is a much better and more profitable prize, and with Liverpool and Manchester United long since exorcised from the talent pool, it’s there for the taking.

For Chelsea, the best draw on paper wasn’t even necessary – the Blues face Cardiff City in the fifth-round, though all eyes will be on the meeting of Southampton and Portsmouth, two teams that wouldn’t dare piss on each other were they on fire.

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FA Cup Fourth Round Liveblog: Preston North End v. Chelsea

"I'm The Son Of A Famous, Invincible Manager... Get Me Out Of Here!!!"

Poor Darren Ferguson. He’s been in charge at Deepdale for about as long as it took me to write this sentence (this will be his home managerial debut), and he’s faced with brooding Italian genius Carlo Ancelotti and his slick Chelsea side.

Not exactly the baptism one hopes for when taking a gig, but these are the breaks (to quote the honorable Kurtis Blow) for a team that have won just twice in their last 12 games in all competitions.

In that same song, Kurtis also said that “breaks run cold and breaks run hot / Some folks got ‘em and some have not,” a concept that also applies to this David v. Goliath encounter. We’re still waiting for Chelsea’s cold streak and hoping it comes soon, but today, they should be fine, Cech in goal or not.

So please, let’s at least hope there are some goals, zesty tackles, mayhem and controversy. These are the breaks for which the FA Cup should be known.

Lineups and hackneyed efforts to wedge rap lyrics into my commentary below the jump.

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FA Cup Open Thread: Replay Wednesday (With Video)

Last FA Cup trophy for Newcastle... 1955

Welcome to today’s open thread. Just two games in the FA Cup today, the replays between Liverpool and Reading and Newcastle and Plymouth (that’s the green scum to Spectator).

Both games kick off at 2.45, lets get into some team news. From Anfield with new signing Maxi Rodriguez watching on…

Liverpool: Cavalieri, Agger-do, Insua, Carragher, Degen, Aqua-Man, Gerrard, Benayoun, Lucas, Torres, Kuyt. Subs:Gulacsi, Aurelio, Skrtel, Spearing, Babel, Pacheco, Ngog.

Reading: Federici, Mills, Ingimarsson, Bertrand, Cisse, Gunnarsson,McAnuff, Karacan, Sigurdson, Church, Rasiak. Subs:Hamer, Pearce, Tabb, Matejovsky, Kebe, Howard, Long.

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Tuesday Bootroom: FA Cup replays

Where are the snow studs?

Whoa! We’re out of practice around here. All of these postponements in England of late means that we’re putting this post up with about 5 minutes to spare. Yikes.

Today sees a handful of 3rd Round FA Cup replays, a SPL match, and nothing else. Join us after the jump for the schedule and banter.

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FA Cup Round Up.

Who wants it?

The Cup is back!  This weekend saw the third round of the FA Cup reinforce the romance of the worlds most loved competition as Leeds toppled Man United, but elsewhere the cup boasted its largest attendances for over 30 years.

For those unfamiliar with the FA Cup, the teams from the Premiership and Coca-Cola Championship avoid rounds 1 and 2 as that’s where the non-league teams who have battled to make it to round 1 meet League One and League Two competition. The top two tiers of English football get a bye and join in the fun in round 3. 

So, to the action…Jermaine Beckford took his big moment in front of the cameras to knock United out of the competition yesterday, but whats next for Leeds and all the other winners from round 3? A look at the weekends results and round 4 match-ups after the jump.

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FA Cup Third Round Liveblog: Manchester United v. Leeds United

Leeds: Trying To Do It For Don

Boy oh boy, and to think I woke from my Liverpool-related malaise (seriously… 1-1 on the road to Reading? eesh) with this matchup waiting.

Leeds United v. Manchester United. Don Revie v. Matt Busby (kinda, but not really).

These two teams hate one another, though to be fair, the animosity is more on Leeds’ side these days as current form has split the teams apart. It’s like Holland v. Germany; the hatred was strong once upon a time, but now it’s just the Dutch doing the spitting.

Anyways, it’s still got more passion to it than any Sunderland/Barrow tilt, so join me after the jump for all the action.

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FA Cup Bootroom, With Goals.

McCarthy's in the Bootroom, are you?

Today sees ’round three’ of the worlds most famous cup competition, as the FA Cup gets underway with some tasty match-ups.

Who will achieve a famous victory and which giant will inevitably slip up on the lower league banana skin.

Reading host Liverpool, Birmingham take on Forest, Tottenham play Peterborough , Man City take on ‘Boro and Sunderland versus non-league Barrow to mention a few. There are also many other games in League One and Scotland.

All the day’s fixtures after the jump and maybe some goal highlights too!

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Quick Throw: FA Cup Sour Grapes Edition

Fergie hates the Wembley pitch. It’s even the reason why he selected a team full of pre-teens. [The Sun]

Wenger hates it too. [The Sun]

Fergie also thinks that Moyes’ pre-match whispers about ref Mike Riley cost ‘em that penalty [BBC Sport]

Even Rio Ferdinand thinks that because of United’s brilliance, they miss out on obvious penalties all the time! [Guardian Sport]

Really, we know who’s to blame for United’s loss: that Timmy Howard lad. He did good, didn’t he? [101 Great Goals]

Arsenal-Hull City FA Cup QF Open Thread.

Boy that’s a lot of info to try to get into the title line.

We, of course, tend to care much more about Arsenal than Hull, so let’s hit the Arsenal news. Almunia is out after Diouf tried to break the Spanglishiard’s foot off at the ankle. Clichy is said to be sitting as well, while Arshavin really wants to play but may be out due to eight stitches in his foot. Eduardo is lightly injured again and–news flash–Rosicky is never coming back.

Hull have some no-names back, some no-names injured or cup-tied, and Geovanni back in form just in time to repeat his heroics at Emirates. Great.

Full Lineups:
Arsenal: Fabianski, Sagna, Djourou, Gallas, Gibbs, Walcott, Diaby, Song, Vela, Arshavin, van Persie. Subs: Toure, Nasri, Denilson, Silvestre, Mannone, Bendtner, Eboue.

Hull City: Myhill, Dawson, Ricketts,Halmosi, Zayatte, Ashbee, Barmby, Geovanni, Gardner, Fagan Manucho. Subs: Hughes, Duke, France, Garcia, Mendy, Folan, Featherstone.

Enjoy it. Comment away as usual. Pagination is encouraged but not required.

Stunning Strikes, Poor Ad Placements, and the FA Cup Draw

Something tells me that people who want to read about Arsenal’s FA Cup win, probably don’t want to buy an Aston Villa kit any time soon.

Just a hunch but I bet that ad on that particular page nets zero sales. In fact, if there’s such a thing as negative sales, that’d be a good candidate to achieve that benchmark.

Anyway, Arsenal and Everton both won today. And for their efforts, the Toffees get to go to Wembley, while the Gunners go home. Life is so unfair.

Actually, Arsenal still have their quarterfinal against Hull to play. The Tigers have been woeful as of late, collecting only 3 points so far this calendar year. But, seeing how Hull City won at the Emirates back towards the start of the season, the Gunners can’t take them lightly.

Who are we kidding? That’s the hallmark of this Arsenal team: 1 point from Tottenham, 1 point from Fulham, 2 points from Sunderland, and zero points from Stoke (although there are three points still waiting in the rematch). If this Arsenal team is good at anything, it’s taking lesser sides lightly and giving up points they should bag. Ergo: fifth place.

But while there’s one quarterfinal still to be played, the FA Cup semi-final draw is set. United get the easier of the draws (shocker!) as they pick up Everton. Chelsea get the winner of Hull CIty and Arsenal.

Anyway, rather than squint to read about Eduardo’s backheel strike, just watch it here. And really this is where low frame rates and shitty Flash compression go a long way toward ruining a thing of beauty, but this was pretty sweet.

Oh, and yes, we know we stumbled toward the finish line this week. Shit we didn’t even get an open thread up this morning. We’ll make it up to you this week. Promise.