FA Cup replays pose problems all round
There are only a handful of clubs who start the season with the
realistic goal of winning the Premier League, yet there are many more
who can entertain the thought of lifting the FA Cup.
Yet so great is the wealth gap between England’s top-flight clubs and
the rest that many teams now regard avoiding relegation from the
Premier League as an achievement in itself.
Given a choice between top-flight survival and a ‘good Cup run’,
there are plenty of clubs who will take the former, with Portsmouth —
FA Cup winners in 2008 but now playing in English football’s fourth-tier
— cited in some quarters as an example of what can happen when ‘the
romance of the Cup’ plays second fiddle to sound financial management.
The third round is the stage of the FA Cup, the world’s oldest senior
knockout football tournament, that sees the entry of England’s leading
teams and for those involved in third round replays this week, it is a
fixture they could do without.
With Leicester mounting a wholly unexpected challenge for the Premier
League title, it will be fascinating to see whether manager Claudio
Ranieri deploys his first-choice side for Wednesday’s match against
Tottenham Hotspur after Harry Kane’s 89th-minute penalty salvaged a 2-2
draw for Spurs first time round.
The same is true for
Remi Garde, manager of bottom of the Premier League Aston Villa, when it
comes to picking a side for a replay against fourth division Wycombe.
With the Premier League title out of reach this season, there is no
doubt that winning the FA Cup would be a way for manager Jurgen Klopp to
cement his growing popularity with Reds fans in his first season in
charge.
But if the Merseysiders are to set-up an all Premier League
fourth-round tie with West Ham they must first get past Exeter at
Anfield on Wednesday after the fourth-tier club held them to a 2-2 draw.
If Portsmouth get past Ipswich on Tuesday they will welcome
Bournemouth, now enjoying life in the Premier League in something of a
reversal of fortune for the two south coast clubs, to Fratton Park in
the fourth round.
For a non-league side to get this far in the FA Cup is an impressive
football achievement and usually something of a money-spinner for the
team concerned.
But for Eastleigh, situated on the outskirts of Southampton and a
short drive down the coast to Portsmouth, the cachet they get from being
the only non-league side left in this season’s FA Cup may not be
matched by a cash boost.
Their third round replay against second-tier strugglers Bolton on
Tuesday has been overlooked for live broadcast coverage by the BBC.
Had the game been shown live on television, Eastleigh could have benefitted to the tune of £72,000 ($102,656).
“One minute we have (the BBC’s) Football Focus down here talking
about the romance of the Cup and the next they tell us we’re not being
shown live,” Stewart Donald, the chairman of Eastleigh, told The Times.
“The romance has been lost a bit for me.”