FA Cup – 3rd Round

That right back for Swindon marking Jesus is having a tidy game.

Why do Premier League goalkeepers keep gifting opportunities and goals to opponents, Millwall the beneficieries this time as Palace keeper decides he is Messi.

I know it's not cool to love the BBC but what a brilliant job they did on Radio 5Live with the most incredible FA Cup atmosphere as Cambridge beat Newcastle.

A tremendous performance by the League One side and some fantastic saves by their goalie.

Midweek could be a problem. Maybe we should support Leicester asking for a postponement?

They only had 8 first teamers available against Watford. If that's what their youngsters can do, we really should wait for their full squad to be available, we'll have a better chance to get something out the game.

Just reading that four Leicester players were at the world darts championships on New Year's Day. Maddison, Harvey Barnes, Choudhary and Dewsbury-Hall. They can fuck right off if they think this game is getting postponed again.

A lot of their players have fairly long(-ish)-term injuries, so does this mean they will want every game called off until all their players are fit again?

Shrewsbury!

And Morecambe!

Obligatory Liverpool penalty.

Is there no VAR at Anfield? Firstly the Shrews had a goal chalked off for offside before the ball hit the back of the net, then Liverpool get a penalty for handball similar to the one we didn't get off that blind Kevin Friend and Van Dijk was leaning all over the defender who handled it.

Andy, there will be VAR at Anfield, but any dubious decision against the RS will probably be overlooked by VAR, after all it's not allowed that a lower league team beats the RS.

Makes my blood boil, Rob. We were robbed at Millwall because there as no VAR and the two missed penalties last night were terrible decisions. Why oh why do we get such bad luck?

The offside goal was level at least but the linesman flagged far too early, against protocol, and the ref blew, completely wrong.

Penalty? The ball didn't even touch the lad's hand but ref gave it anyway, bent.

Leeds can keep their manager, this is awfull.

Amazing how the very kid that turns out for the wall pushers is the new fucking Messi. Absolutely despise the poxy drug-riddled Satan-worshipping bastards.

And by the way, how did they get their Semi-Final postponed vs Arsenal but can field a team today against League One Shrewsbury at home??

See the leg breaker is playing for the RS today. Has he took anyone out yet, and more importantly, have the press and Sky / BT been carrying out a witch hunt to get him banned for life!

Nick, getting that semi-final postponed has actually worked out against them. They now have to play the first leg at home, and I bet they thought they would have Salad and Mane back before the second leg, but both legs have to be played before the end of January.

West Ham go 2-0 up in the fourth minute of added on time, and decide to bring Yarmalenko on as a sub. Whistle blows for full time as Leeds kick off. Seriously, what is the point of a substitution like that?

Rob, not having the 2nd leg at Anfield will be a new experience for them.

Last half of extra time at an empty Cardiff. 1-1 with Preston.

Mike,

No fans are allowed at any sporting events played in Wales due to Covid. Chester City are stuck on the boundary between England and Wales, and not sure how much of their ground is in England or Wales. Maybe they could allow fans in the English part of their stadium!

Nick #15.

I was going to post the same thing until I found out that the FA had warned clubs that Premier League rules, with regard to postponements, didn't apply to the FA Cup and clubs would be expected to play their tie even if it meant fielding some youth players.

Incredibly young side Arsenal have put out. Be interesting to see Charlie Patino play and see how ready he is - lots of noise about him being the real deal. Also Brennan Johnson for Forest, who we’ve been linked with recently. Should be a good game.

Amazing shirt fail by Arsenal. Wearing pennies. Numbers not even remotely visible on TV.

Mike. It's a "one off" all white "no more red" shirt to highlight youngsters losing their life through knife crime in London. The movement is being led by Ian Wright and Idris Elba. The "no more red" represents "no more blood."

Cheers, Brian. hadn't read much about an anti-knife violence movement. Very interesting idea.

But I still wish I could read the numbers.

Elba played Mandela, right?

He did mate, and also Luther, which was a great series worth watching.

Woohoo!!!!! Arsenal about to crash out! Forest 1-0

Would be the second time in four years that the Arse got kicked out at Forest.

Brennan Johnson has had a good game but the right back DJed Spence has been excellent.

Bye Gooners!!!! Well done, Forest.

Imagine being knocked out by a mid-table Championship club. Makes our result look a bit better, eh?

Jeff #31, yes, he's been impressive. Obscure player on loan from Boro, but looks like he has a future.

Arsenal had a pretty strong team out today, as well, Mike. Should be ashamed of thrmselves!!

Rob #21, apparently the whole ground is in Wales. I'm sure the old Sealand Road only had one end in Wales.

That Djed Spence of Forest looks some player!! I thought the Swindon right back looked good against City the other night too.

We were strongly linked with Djed Spence last season. Along with almost every RB in Europe.

Good to see Arsenal go out. Not easy to win away at a well motivated Championship side.

I would like to see us look more accomplished in possession though.

Time to kick the Bees' nest. UTFT!!!!!

Dion Dublin on commentary is a blert.

Slippy G has got Villa playing some lovely football tonight. Put Coutinho and Digne in there and it's an exciting team.

Watching Villa tonight I fear they will steamroller us next Saturday lunchtime.

They have so much movement going forward, players that know what their doing, accomplished players.

We badly need that Norwich game to go ahead this weekend, we need to win even more badly.

I don't think that Villa goal should have been disallowed. The block was a long way from the ball.

I agree, Michael, I'd be fuming if that was an Everton equaliser ruled out.

Cavani could be accused of runnning into him.

Cavani does run into him, how much blocking and pulling goes on at corners? nothing ever given.

Oliver is looking directly at the incident and gives nothing…bent.

VAR is crap. They are just desperate to find a reason to disallow. There should be a 60 second maximum then go with the on field decision.

If that goes in at the other end, I don’t think there would be anything to check, but I’m very, very suspicious of some refs.

VAR is being used to favour the big boys, the paymasters want the status quo.

El Ghazi cup tied.

Odd performance by Rashford. He doesn't look right. Maybe needs to get out of Manchester? Come to L4 Marcus - revive your career with Rafa!

I think that Van de Beek has made a difference to Man Utd but the way they are playing anyone would make a difference.

How did Utd get away with that / Villa building a good side, shame we may be selling them a player to improve it.

Jeff, EL Ghazi can stay right where he is. As for Rashford, he looked totally disinterested all match. He could probably do with a change of scenery.

Agreed Rob, El Ghazi looks no great shakes on his many cameo’s, think he got one against us recently though, we certainly don’t need another average winger.

I think that Digne, will suit Villa, who looked to stretch the play at every opportunity, a tactic that also gave them a lot of space in the middle of the park, making them look like a good team, although that could also be because United were very poor, for most of that second half?

I love watching teams make the pitch big, when they are in possession, and that’s why I’m worried about Everton, because we are making the pitch big for our opponents, when out of possession, and if we don’t stop doing this, we are going to be in big trouble.

I’d sooner see three centre midfielders, rather than three central defenders, but using either tactic, Benitez has got to make us more compact immediately imo, to stop us constantly being overrun.

Aston Villa were massively unlucky tonight. Both in terms of deserving to win based on the way they played and the officials being star-struck, yet again.

No way should that goal be disallowed, not with the benefit (yes benefit) of having video technology to assist. Poor officials once more whether on the pitch or looking at a monitor. Shitting out of making a decision.

Shaw shouldn't have been on the pitch and Man Utd got out of jail with bookings overall in my opinion. At one point in the space of about 5 minutes, the amount of persistent fouling that went on down Villa's right / United's left that went mostly unpunished was ridiculous.

My wife asked me about Digne Tony as they think they have a good left back in Target. They do. The difference is the way Gerard wants them to play. They are pressing higher and winning the ball further up the pitch. Target is a good old fashioned British defensive-minded left-back.

Digne will suit the more forward-thinking, attacking style their manager wants. Digne will be a good supply chain for the likes of Watkins. I said elsewhere, he's missed Calvert-Lewin and having something to aim for with his delivery.

"Digne will be a good supply chain for the likes of Watkins. I said elsewhere, he's missed Calvert-Lewin and having something to aim for with his delivery."

Great take, Danny, and I totally agree mate. +1

Watkins is a better footballer also than Calvert-Lewin.

The chance Watkins hit the bar with, no way Calvert-Lewin would have the footwork to produce that opportunity.

Jim @56

I don't know the comparative ages of Calvert-Lewin and Watkins, but Dominic surely must have a better goal scoring record than the Villa guy. I appreciate that Watkins is more skilful, but why do we always tend to denigrate our own players, even the more reliable ones?

Obviously given our form in the last 12 months there are many teams with many players who are better than ours and we're stuck with most of our current squad for the foreseeable future.

I don't see the point in constantly wishing it was different or that players from other clubs, or in some cases the entire outfits of other clubs should be at Everton instead of the players that are actually contracted to play for Everton.

I watched the Man Utd - Aston Villa game, but this morning on the BBC website the pundits, Lineker, Shearer and Richards discuss the VAR decision.

Shearer mentions that there should not be VAR at some grounds and not others – fair enough. He then goes on to say that there were two penalties missed there and Hull got dumped out of the Cup.

He was at that game and it was just the other day, and he has seemingly forgotten that Everton should have had 2 penalties, not Hull. Very odd.

I caught that from Shearer too Eddie. Strange comment. Surprised he wasn't pulled up on it.

Then again, not surprised at all!

Danny- I think he really dislikes us, perhaps there is a bit of history there.

having watched the Man Utd v Villa game I couldnt believe the form of Marcus Rashford. I think his stance on free school meals and taking on the government for one so young was truly remarkable, most young footballers these days think only of themselves. But last night he looked a shadow of the player he has been, he looked disinterested and Utd were very fortunate to win a game were for most of the 2nd half were 2nd best.
There is no doubt that Gerrard so far has had an effect on the way Villa play, no sitting back against a so called bigger club. His team attacked at every opportunity, just like Arteta at Arsenal the young managers today want to get their teams playing front foot attacking football.

I think Shearer’s dislike started with his Newcastle league debut defeat to us. Overshadowed his record transfer. Supporter of Allardyce (when with us) and constant critic of Pickford (particularly Dick Van Dijk incident).

Agree Brian, I was amazed. His body language looked very down and overall he looked totally devoid of any confidence. Maybe he thinks he should be playing through the middle rather than starting on the left.

Shearer made an obvious point about VAR but yes as on Saturday he’s obviously still disappointed that we progressed rather than Hull. I might be wrong but didn’t he get a serious injury against us in a pre season friendly at Goodison?

Tim # 63. You beat me to it. I was going to say that Shearer got a serious injury in a pre season tournament at Goodison, when I think he slipped on the wet surface, doing his ligaments in. Think he was out for months because of it.

Tim and Rob, I'm sure you are right about Shearer. In fact, my memory is that there were no other players near him, he just slipped. Possibly, in the warm up?

Rob and Steve - Yes. Just looked it up, July 1997, as they agreed to sell Les Ferdinand to Spurs that weekend and then tried to stop him moving because of the injury to Shearer. Maybe he holds some kind of bizarre long term grudge?

Hello everyone. Not posted for a while. Hope you're all good.
If I remember rightly, Shearers injury at Goodison was during a sort of mini tournament.
I'm probably wrong, but I think it happened whilst he was playing against Ajax.

According to my mate (Newcastle season ticket holder), there's a bit of ill feeling from a few Newcastle fans towards Everton because of what was perceived as a jubilant piss taking reaction by our fans at Fulham at the end of the season when they went down a few years ago.

They're not sure why we reacted the way we did as they've never had a problem with us.

Might be a contributing factor for Shearer given ultimately he's a supporter.

Shearer's injury came in the 89th minute vs Chelsea.

Everton and Newcastle didn't play each other during the tournament.

Danny, spot on. It was when we played Fulham away the last game before the fa cup final. I was on the Happy Al’s coach and somebody had a recording on their phone of the Petula Clark song Down Town, with the words obviously changed. By the time we reached Liverpool on the way back the whole coach was booming it out…..

https://www.youtube.com/watchv=UhpHBWVooIs

He (Shearer) had also talked before the game (Hull) about how could Everton have wasted £560 million? He said it as if the owner had put all the money in and we had (with various managers) misspent it.

Now we might well have wasted it but the owner was the one responsible for wasting it, in his choice of managers and players. I'm sure the amount has increased with each pundit's utterance.

Shearer is so good at stating the obvious in such a dead-pan way. He tries to look earnest but just makes Danny Murphy seem really bubbly and amusing.

Shearer is concerned about his Newcastle legacy with the sketchy owners and is looking to bang on some other club that is on tough times as a distraction. He knows he'll have to defend some MBS so he's just getting out ahead of it by slamming us.

Simon Jordan speaking about VAR and its use and non-use, depending which stadiums the game is played, says “Hull probably lost that game to Everton, with two bona fide penalty shouts, because VAR didn’t exist.

This follows Shearer's similar claims, did I miss something, did Hull have a couple of dodgy decisions go against them last Saturday? I know that Everton did have a couple of legitimate claims for the award of penalites, but did Hull City too?

If they didn't, it says a lot for the whole media circus when because one pundit says something, it is parrotted by other pundits without them checking the validity of the claims.

Barry (73)

You didn’t miss anything, it was definitely the other way around.