The Emirates FA Cup: Upsets or Just Upsetting?

Best wishes for the New Year, dear reader (if there is more than one of you, even better).

Have you made any resolutions? Or broken any yet? We’re a week in already but after an eventful start to 2019, here are half a dozen that some selected people in football should be thinking of making if they haven’t already….

Any Premier League Manager

• I will not make unnecessary changes in the FA Cup

Claude Puel should have this at the top of his list. Never mind the magic of the cup, this was a lesson in how to monumentally screw up a great Christmas and New Year in 90 minutes. Having beaten Manchester City, Chelsea (at Stamford Bridge) and Everton in quick succession, a shock defeat at Newport County had fans saying this morning that he was the ‘worst manager the club had ever had’ and should be sacked immediately. They also lost to Cardiff City over the festive period, so this indicates that it either says something about the expectations of Leicester fans these days or that Welsh sides are their kryptonite.

Either way, sending out a weakened (in this case not that weak but still seven changes from their previous EPL match) team is a risky business. The clubs at the top have big enough squads to do what they like and still score seven goals at a canter (anyone need any further convincing that the gap is getting bigger?) and the likes of Cardiff and Huddersfield probably don’t need the distraction of the cup, but the others – just what are you thinking?

You’re already out of the League Cup, you won’t get into the top six and don’t need to worry about the bottom three either, so the FA Cup is the basket for all your eggs if you want to be successful in 2019. Please note: your fans aren’t going to be jubilant over finishing eighth, ninth or tenth– success for them is winning things such as the FA Cup, and memorable days out at Wembley.

The FA

• We will give our prized competition a bit more clout

Linked to the above. Teams wouldn’t treat the cup with quite so much disdain if it actually meant a bit more and I know it’s the way the world has gone but that doesn’t mean that the powers that be should be giving it a helping hand in degrading the cup to third-class citizen status.

Kick off times and days all over the shop don’t help attendances – please play more games with 3pm kick-offs on a Saturday (especially the final!).

Fielding second XI’s won’t bring fans flocking in and after Burnley’s problems this season, clubs need the ‘prize’ of a Europa League place like they need Wayne Hennessey in charge of their community inclusion programme.

After much thought, I think the only viable way forward is to make the fourth and final Champions League spot available either for the FA Cup winner to take up automatically, or at the very least contest a play-off against the fourth-placed team in the league. The alternative – sadly – is that the competition becomes less and less important and eventually is only really contested by top Premier League reserve teams and clubs in Leagues One and Two, and we’ve already got the EFL trophy for that.

Neil Warnock

• I will treat others how I would like to be treated myself

Maybe his club’s own FA Cup upset at Gillingham put him in the wrong frame of mind, but the (usually) more-chilled out septuagenarian and Cardiff boss lost his rag with Liverpool this weekend when Nathanial Clyne moved to Bournemouth on loan after verbally agreeing to join the Bluebirds instead.

Warnock said that Liverpool – and Clyne, to whom he gave a footballing debut at Palace – showed a lack of class. That might well be right, but saying that the referees and their governing body are shite (or words to that effect) shows a lack of class too, Neil. Just saying.

Jose Mourinho

• I will get my mojo back and wait for the Portugal job to come up

I’m a fan of the former Special One and as a member of the Manchester United board has already said, even Surallex wouldn’t have been able to replace Surrallex after all those silverware-laden years in charge. But even Jose himself, who is a specialist in deflecting blame, would have to admit that he got it wrong on this occasion, no matter how tough a task it’s been for him, and Messrs Moyes and Van Gaal before him.

His sour demeanour was as ill a fit with Old Trafford as his defensive tendencies (even at home against lower-placed teams) and constant calling out of players who weren’t at their best did him few favours either. I always smile at the ‘lost the dressing room’ accusation because there are some thirty individuals and it’s hard to lose them all, but if there was a time when someone got close, this was it. The fact that the same team has beaten all-comers (albeit extremely beatable ones) with ease since suggests that very good players were not exactly trying their hardest but simply hanging them out to dry in public isn’t a tactic that sits well with the younger generation of footballers who need a comforting arm if they lose a game of Fortnite.

You always wanted to end up as the national manager’s job with your country, Jose, so work on finding your smile and love for the game again until it’s ready for you to go into. 

Paul Pogba/Alexis Sanchez etc

• We will be a bit more professional in 2019

There are at least two sides to every story and it would be remiss of any article to reference the former Manchester United manager without shining a light on the players too (or some of them anyway). No matter if the dressing room is lost or in danger of being, no matter if the manager is apportioning blame left, right and centre (midfield) and no matter what is happening off the pitch, there can’t be a valid reason for such utter grass-based dross from the ‘ballers on it.

Watching supposedly world-class players shuffle around the field like sulky schoolboys who haven’t been allowed out because they didn’t do their homework was an embarrassment to the profession. They earn vast amounts and the minimum requirement in return has to be effort – but some didn’t even get that far. Those concerned will probably point to the mini-resurgence under OGS as proof that Jose had lost the plot as well as their allegiance, but I think it also says a lot more about them as people too. When they play crap, they might be sticking it to the manager, but they are also letting down tens of thousands of fans who pay a lot of money and worship them, and deserve a lot better than an ‘I’ll play when I feel like it’ attitude.

Dean Keates

• I will sort out the defence in 2019

A slightly more personal one, but please do it quickly, Deano. On Saturday, Walsall were on course for a mini-FA Cup shock of their own when they led at Bolton at half-time.

Most goals against: League One via FootyStats

In the second half, Wanderers (in a terrible run of form) reverted to that simple tactic of crossing the ball into the penalty area. I counted six or seven occasions; five of which ended up in the net. Had Bolton, or any opposition, crossed the ball twenty or more times, I’m convinced they’d have scored with every single one. We could have been looking at a post-war FA Cup record (Preston still hold it with a 26-0 versus Hyde in 1887). I Googled it further and saw that Aston Villa hold the record for the most FA Cup goals against (589 since 1888).

Thank goodness Bolton only found their crossing boots in the second half or even that number could have been under threat.

Here’s to better things in the rest of 2019!

words Darren Young, D3D4 columnist