Last week belonged to League Two’s Newport County as they knocked out Leicester City. I just hope Leicester’s players had enough time to enjoy a walk around Tredegar House before they returned home. I’d be devastated to hear they didn’t.
Despite Fulham spending a £100m in the summer, Claudio Ranieri is adamant that they need more players if they are to survive. Why not chuck another £100m at it, just to be certain?
The truth is, flashing your cash around like you just don’t care doesn’t guarantee anything in football. For all Fulham’s spending power, they were still knocked out of the FA Cup at home by an Oldham side positioned 10th in League Two.
Following the comfortable 3-0 win at Blackpool, Arsenal boss Unai Emery has been told that he can only bring in loan players. This is a massive club that is valued at £2.2bn and number six in the Deloitte money league, who brought in £198m revenue. Yet they could offer Mesut Ozil £350, 000 a week?
Us Cardiff fans witnessed a football rarity during the match at League One’s Gillingham. We saw a Neil Warnock side see a lot of the ball. It was only then when we noticed how toothless we really were.
Fielding a strong eleven that on paper should have been more than enough to defeat the Gills, did not pan out as it should. Midway through the second half, Elliott List curled a shot directly into the centre of the goal where Cardiff goalkeeper Alex Smithies then proceeded to dive out of the way.
Looking back, it was quite hilarious really.
Are any Ipswich fans reading this? If there are, you have my full respect. It must be awful being an Ipswich fan at the moment. In the Championship, they are bottom of the league and 10 points adrift of safety.
Since they last won a FA Cup game, Bournemouth have gone from the bottom of League Two to spending four years in the Premier League. The latest side to knock them out in the third round were Accrington Stanley, courtesy of the one goal by Billy McKee.
West Ham beat Birmingham 2-0 through Marko Arnautovic and Andy Carroll’s goals. Austrian Arnautovic was the subject of a £35m bid from an unnamed Chinese club, which West Ham swift stated he wasn’t for sale. His brother (and agent) told Talksport that Marko wanted to leave and compete for titles.
Of course, that’s the reason why. Because competing for the Chinese title was definitely the only reason Yannick Carrasco and Oscar sacrificed their careers to play in China.
Rotherham offered Burton Albion some much-needed encouragement when the Millers were on the receiving end of a 7-0 mauling by Man City last weekend.
Burton, facing Man City in the Carabao Cup semi-final just a few days later, banked on goalkeeper Bradley Collins to have the game of his life. Unfortunately for him and the rest of the Brewers, they got annihilated 9-0. The eagle-eyed viewers among you would have noticed the keeper time wasting in a desperate bid to avoid the scoreline heading to double figures.
Rivals Spurs and Chelsea met in the other semi-final, where a penalty decision allowed Harry Kane to slot home and take a slender one-goal lead into the second leg. As is often the case when Harry Kane steps up to take a penalty, the goalkeeper is given no chance.
However, was it really a penalty? While VAR attempted to clear it up as quickly as they can (about 5 minutes too long), it wasn’t enough to satisfy Chelsea boss Maurizio Saari. At the end of the game, Saari showed a different angle courtesy of Chelsea TV (biased much?) which shows Kane was marginally offside.
So who was right? Quite frankly, I’ve gone past caring. Unless they replay the game, it doesn’t matter anymore.
And finally to Monday’s match between Wolves against Liverpool. When Man City deservedly beat Liverpool recently, Jurgen Klopp blamed the result on the fact that Man City’s grass was too long.
On Monday, Liverpool, or Liverpool B as the Telegraph reported it, lost again. Surely it was down to a poor collective performance? Or the fact that Klopp fielded a large chunk of inexperienced youngsters and reserves?
Nope. None of that. Apparently, it was simply too windy in the West Midlands for the Liverpool players to cope. Aah, right.
He wasn’t done there. Ahead of the game at Brighton tomorrow, he bemoaned the lack of squad depth he had and mentioned how lucky Chelsea and Spurs were to both have full squads to choose from. He’s right you know. Only Jan Vertonghen, Dier, Lucas Moura, Dembele, Aurier and Wanyama were missing for Tottenham. Sigh.
Have a great weekend everyone.
