A cold snap, the FA Cup crackles and Evatt goes pop
13 January 2025 | The biggest stories, stats and insights from a weekend of FA Cup and EFL football.
“Prepare the boarding party and set your weapons for stun…”
A quote from Darth Vader to kick us off. He could never have said, “Set your weapons for KILL” without treading outside the lines of a PG rating. The FA Cup says it, though: it’s kill or be killed.
Within the league format, players lose their heads, teams lose matches and clubs suffer relegations, but the FA Cup offers the harshest spectacle of all: total elimination. Those are the rules. In the Third Round, the casualties are like fallen Stormtroopers – walk-on roles in a bigger plot. But somewhere out there, like Sheffield United in 2022/23 and Coventry in 23/24, one of these EFL teams can be a Luke, a Leia, a Han. The Top 20’s deflector shield may be fully operational, but there’s always a hero and a journey – at least, there should be (for ‘state of the cup’ thoughts, see this week’s View From).
Welcome to Weekend Notes.
🏆 Cup Stories
A selection of decisive moments from across the FA Cup 3rd Round
🌟 A New Hope — Brentford 0-1 Plymouth — The numbers tell a story. This was Argyle’s first away win of 2024/25, having made the mid-January trip with a record on the road that read P15 W0 D3 L12 F3 A37. Morgan Whittaker scored from outside the box with his 39th such attempt this season; only his second success. And defence was the key: after a shaky start, as Fabio Carvalho wasted an overload and Matthew Sorinola survived a penalty shout, Argyle restricted Brentford – the Brentford of 27 goals in 10 home games – to just 0.4 xG and repelled 13 corners, usually a big source of Argyle weakness. Yet numbers can’t paint the picture of Kevin Nancekivell, approaching 20 years at the club and in his fourth stint as caretaker manager, unable and unwilling to contain his emotion as he celebrated with travelling fans while incoming gaffer Miron Muslic joyfully filmed the scenes on his phone. The cup has given Argyle life; now we’ll see if they chose wisely.
🫓 Manna from Devon — Exeter 3-1 Oxford — Plymouth weren’t the only FA Cup heroes from the county that does scones wrong. Ex axing Ox may not feel like an upset but it represents the first time in 44 years that the Grecians have reached the FA Cup’s Fourth Round, and all three goals (Demetri Mitchell x2, then Vincent Harper) were well taken. Gary Rowett will likely be less miffed by Oxford’s elimination than by the forthcoming three-match ban for Tyler Goodrham, sent off for elbowing a street-smart Jake Richards.
💃 Because McCann can can — Hull 1-1 (4-5pen) Doncaster — Donny sent away the Tigers, Grant McCann’s former employers, with the spirit and good fortune you need for such an upset. Hull had 8 shots on target, 12 corners and 76% possession to Donny’s 2, 2 and 24%, but the visitors fought – literally, in having seven players booked in normal time, as well as figuratively in coming back from 4-2 down in the shootout. Goalscorer Luke Molyneux scored the vital equalising penalty and Harry Clifton’s clincher earned them a visit from Crystal Palace in the near future. Ruben Selles – who just gave a superb interview with NTT20 – can refocus on Hull’s Championship relegation battle, though he’d have every right to be miffed by Doncaster’s penalty hero, Teddy Sharman-Lowe, receiving only a yellow card for this sneaky quickstep.
👍 The good news… League One Wycombe beating Championship Portsmouth 2-0 was the only ‘divisional shock’, though technically it was 46th v 41st in the pyramid. Nonetheless, it’s another feather in Matt Bloomfield’s cap and his side could face a fellow third-tier team in the next round if Charlton win at Preston on Tuesday. Elsewhere, some EFL underdogs proved awkward opponents: Harrogate kept out Leeds for an hour at Elland Road before losing 1-0, while Stockport lost by a single goal at Selhurst Park, Bromley took the lead away at Newcastle and Reading forced Burnley to extra time. Even Salford weren’t all that bad at the Etihad; Manchester City just converted 10 shots on target into 8 goals. OK, yes, that is a lot of goals.
👎 …and the bad — Manchester City 8-0 Salford. Chelsea 5-0 Morecambe. Liverpool 4-0 Accrington. Leicester 6-2 QPR. Bournemouth 5-1 WBA. Norwich 0-4 Brighton. A handful of three-goal cruises to boot. The FA Cup can still offer magic but the gap between the top flight and the rest grows ever wider and bleaker. Across the 15 Third Round matches that pitted a Premier League club against an EFL outfit, the aggregate score was 52-7. The last 32 teams in this year’s FA Cup will include 17 of 20 top-flight teams; only Brentford were defeated by someone from a lower division. Ah well. At least we got rid of the replays.
🚨 An EFL trio…
Three decisive moments from an abridged EFL offering
Rotherham 3-1 Bolton
Walsall 5-1 Tranmere
Swindon 0-0 Crewe
With nine league games (and three in the cup) postponed due to freezing temperatures, we were left with a trio of fixtures in a docket that was already abridged by the FA Cup 3rd Round. Let’s take the last one first. Having successfully passed a late pitch inspection, Swindon earned an important point against Crewe, but only after the game was postponed for an hour just three minutes into play. The reason? Something of a ‘fog of bore’. Swindon had the better chances, but we make it the first “match that eventually happened” — nil-nil it ended.
Walsall didn’t have to battle against the weather to batter Tranmere 5-1. A club-record EIGHTH win in a row was made easier in the first half when Rovers’ Sam Finley was shown a second yellow. It was 2-1 at the break, and if Matt Sadler’s Saddlers are anything, they are a great second-half team – in fact, if they had played only second halves all season, they would still have scored more goals than Crewe, Salford and Port Vale, their three nearest challengers, have scored in the real world. Walsall duly bagged another three to put themselves 12 points clear of second place. That lead might come in handy, because on Sunday night came the kicker: Stoke City have recalled Nathan Lowe.
And Rotherham ensured that the fortunes of Bolton manager Ian Evatt dangle ever more dangerously on the brink. A consolation goal in the 86th minute added no sheen to a “fragile” Trotters performance – Evatt’s words, not mine. From a Bolton POV, Millers found it so easy to get themselves 3-0 up, and easier still to defend that lead. The visiting fans made their thoughts clear: boos, chants, the lot. The Bolton gaffer’s post-match interview included the line, “Changing me isn’t going to help”, as he chose instead to call on his players to take responsibility. Will that wash? The tipping point is here; something has to give soon.
🎦 5iveLights
In no particular order, a collection of our favourite goals or clips from across the 72.
Twine has it on strings - another free-kick scored by the Bristol City man.
When the pro is also a con — Cam Congreve put Bromley ahead from range at St James’ Park.
Burgoyne would not be breached (just yet…) - the Morecambe stopper’s double save started with a penalty.
The best VAR ends ‘ANE’ — QPR’s Varane with a misty, twisty belter.
White hot Whit — Mogan Whittaker ends Argyle’s away-day angst to put the Bees back in their hive.
The View From…
I have in the past held up something of a grumpy lens through which to analyse the state of the game, in articles about the Premier League and VAR. It’s not a disposition I particularly want to cling to. Still, I can’t help but feel that excitement on Thursday evenings should be limited to the sound of the start of my weekend and nervous anticipation for the next episode of The Traitors. Sheffield United vs Cardiff City at 19.00 in front of just over 6,000 fans? What’s happened to the FA Cup 3rd Round?
The Traitors is not an arbitrary comparison. Growing up, the FA Cup was ‘event television’. The proliferation of live football matches – not a bad thing by any measure – has changed the behaviour of the general football fan. School playground chat and water-cooler moments in the office were bound to a consciousness of the small number of televised games that everyone seemed to watch. As with The Traitors, friends and families were fixed to the football for a set period of time. That’s the first big change, and without wanting to be too nostalgic, I miss those moments.
Second, third, fourth and into infinity, the biggest change of all is the money. Rotation, fixture congestion, and the grim economics of promotion battles and relegation races place a cup run down the pecking order for everyone. Fans care less. Honestly, I care less. But so do managers and players. After Bristol City’s 2-1 defeat to Wolves, Anis Mehmeti summed up the views of many a player when he posted on Instagram:
“Focus switches to the real stuff, important games coming up”
It’s no surprise that the underdog victories that once defined the FA Cup are becoming ever rarer. The message: Why bother?
But teams should bother. Coventry’s cup semi-final against Manchester United last year, one of the best days of their fans’ lives, should be an inspiration for EFL clubs. Instead, it’s held up by some as a cautionary tale for promotion-chasing Championship clubs: stick to the league grind because the cup isn’t worth the gamble.
Part of it is behavioural. Another part comes down to rule changes. Namely: replays. Once a lifeline for smaller clubs, they’ve been scrapped in the name of ‘modernising’ the game. The reality? It’s about accommodating the bloated schedules of the biggest clubs, whose packed European calendars apparently matter more than grassroots survival. Spare a thought for the Tamworth players who would’ve enjoyed a well-earned run-around at the world-class Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. And spare a thought for Tamworth F.C’s coffers - a replay would’ve brought in around £850k. Instead, their reward was a 3-0 defeat in extra time.
Worst of all is the simple fact that the FA Cup is no longer the event it once was. The big teams barely seem to care until the later stages, and the smaller sides can’t afford to. FA Cup romance isn’t dead. But it is increasingly the case that football’s most powerful poetry has been replaced by flowers from the garage.
🏆 Fantasy Football
Go head-to-head against team NTT20 in our EFL Fantasy Football league
Weather conditions were an advantage for Team NTT20, focusing our picks on the games that would actually be going ahead — and it helped!
A 71-point haul put us fourth for the game week. Not a bad day’s work. Pipping us to top spot was the binary babe, 1011101, which leaves Mr Browne’s Boys in first place overall.
📺 Watching Brief
Upcoming live EFL games
Tuesday 14 January (19:45)
Cardiff vs Watford, Plymouth vs Oxford
Exeter vs Mansfield
Thursday 16 January (20:00)
Shrewsbury vs Wrexham
Friday 17 January (20:00)
Burnley vs Sunderland
Saturday 18 January (12.30)
CH: Cardiff vs Swansea, Millwall vs Hull, Plymouth vs QPR
L1: Blackpool vs Huddersfield, Peterborough vs Leyton Orient
L2: Carlisle vs Bradford, Gillingham vs Doncaster
Sunday 19 January (12:00)
Leeds vs Sheffield Wednesday
“The county that does scones wrong”
Outrageous 🤣