FA Cup Fifth Round Review: Part Two | OneFootball

Here we analyse the final four FA Cup matches of the weekend.

Manchester City 3-1 Plymouth Argyle

Man City have shown themselves to be incapable of beating Europe’s top teams. Two recent defeats to Real Madrid, a loss at home to Liverpool and a 5-1 thrashing at the hands of Arsenal are some of what the champions of England have had to endure.

Luckily they were drawn a relegation-scrapping Championship team in the FA Cup, although after their narrow win over Leyton Orient, there were no guarantees. Especially since Plymouth managed to cause a shock upset in the fourth round, defeating Liverpool one of the competition’s great giant killing results.

City were able to get the win, but once again they made a meal of it. Nico O’Reilly’s stoppage time effort prevented them from trailing by a goal at half-time and until he scored again in the 76th minute, Plymouth were on level terms. A last minute Kevin De Bruyne goal ensured his team went through to the next round, but they shouldn’t be struggling that much.

Newcastle United 1-2 Brighton & Hove Albion (after extra time)

Newcastle are a difficult team to predict. A few weeks ago they made it to the Carabao Cup final after hammering Arsenal 4-0 on aggregate, but 10 days later they were battered 4-0 by Manchester City.

On Sunday, the Magpies thought they had done enough when Fabian Schar scored in stoppage time to put them 2-1 ahead. However, VAR disallowed the goal and it was Brighton who scored later on through Danny Welbeck to give the Seagulls the victory in the battle of the birds.

Tariq Lamptey will be relieved his team won after he blew their big advantage. Newcastle’s Anthony Gordon was sent off for violently shoving Jan Paul van Hecke in the head in an act of absolute stupidity, but Lamptey was shown a second yellow card a few minutes later for a foul. He’s lucky he didn’t cost Brighton the victory.

Manchester United 1-1 Fulham (3-4 on penalties)

Once upon a time Manchester United losing at Old Trafford would be considered a huge surprise. These days the ground is no longer a fortress, but rather a leaky, rat infested theater of nightmares for the club’s supporters. It won’t be around for much longer, but away teams are ensuring they create plenty of lasting memories there.

Bruno Fernandes managed to get the Red Devils level after they fell behind on the stroke of half-time, but they missed five big chances during the match. United should have sealed the victory, but if there’s one thing Ruben Amorim’s side don’t specialise in, it’s winning.

Two unconverted penalties from Victor Lindelöf and Joshua Zirkzee proved fatal and it is Fulham who will be competing in the quarter-finals. Kind of ironic considering United’s owner Jim Ratcliffe said his team’s match tickets should cost more than Fulham’s, a justification he used to raise their ticket prices.

Nottingham Forest 1-1 Ipswich Town (5-4 on penalties)

Nottingham Forest are having a phenomenal season in the Premier League and would have been expected to school struggling Ipswich. However, nothing could separate the sides after 90 minutes. Ipswich opened the scoring through a George Hisrt header, but that was later cancelled out by another headed effort, which was scored by Ryan Yates.

Nottingham Forest obtained a superior expected goals figure of 1.16 compared with Ipswich’s 0.74, but both teams were lacking in the chance creation department. With neither side able to gain an advantage in extra time, the weekend’s third penalty shootout commenced.

There were some well struck penalties, but Jack Taylor’s spot kick was saved which saw Forest avoid an upset. The Ipswich supporters had better make sure they have plenty of sad Ed Sheeran songs on their playlists because it’s going to be a long three hour journey home for them now.