FA Cup Delivers Usual Upsets

With a 1-0 victory, Manchester United managed to ruin Kenny Dalglish’s return to Liverpool after the inevitable departure of Roy Hodgeson. Meanwhile Chelsea had a romp home putting seven goals past a woeful Ipswich. Neither of these results would have caused much of a flutter in the bookmakers offices. 

Stevenage however must be overjoyed with their victory against Newcastle, which wasn’t the first time they had given the Magpies problems in the FA Cup. Despite the bookmakers giving Newcastle odds of 5/1 they seemed to over look this matches history when back in 1998 the then lowly part-timers took the tie to a replay. This time around however they made no mistakes and despite being a whole 73 places below Newcastle won the day 3-1 and now go through to face Reading. 

Crawley Town are another of the minnow sides that could cause a stir when Derby travels to the 4,996 capacity, Broadfields Stadium on Monday evening. Again sports betting fans and bookmakers feel confident that the Rams will win the day and have given them a 16/13 chance of winning the encounter, but ask Newcastle what passion this competition brings out and anything is on the cards. 

Another bitter meeting is on the cards between Cardiff and Stoke after they were unable to decide the tie and will have to wait until January 18th to decide the match. Odds on who will meet the rematch between Wolves and Doncaster, give the South Wales outfit the advantage but even with home advantage this might be a tricky one to call.