FA Cup 6th Round Draw: Now With Even Less Premier League

By: Daryl | February 18th, 2008

FA Cup, Prem teams outnumbered Here’s a fascinating fact about the FA Cup Sixth Round (or Quarterfinal) draw: the Premier League teams are outnumbered. Because the Sheffield United vs Middlesbrough Fifth round game is still to be decided (they drew 0-0 at Bramall Lane so there’s a replay to come) there were nine teams in the draw. Only four of them were Premier league teams, the other five are either Championship residents (Sheff Utd, Cardiff, West Bromwich Albion and Barnsley) or League One dwellers (Bristol Rovers.) Even better, two of the Prem teams (Man Utd and Portsmouth) will play each other and there will definitely be a non Prem team in the semi-finals as Bristol Rovers have been drawn at home to WBA.

Full draw:

Sheffield United or Middlesbrough v Cardiff City

Manchester United v Portsmouth

Bristol Rovers v West Bromwich Albion

Barnsley v Chelsea

Matches to be played on the weekend of 8th and 9th March.

The odd looking quarterfinal draw is a result of some teams not caring (Reading) the big boys drawing each other early (Man Utd 4-0 Arsenal) and some managers resting players when they really really shouldn’t have (Liverpool 1-2 Barnsley.) There’s still a good chance that either Man Utd or Chelsea will take the trophy, and then it will be like this whole thing never happened.

But for the good of the cup I’d love to see one of the smaller teams (basically any of the other seven, including Portsmouth and ‘Boro) go all the way, and get some fresh – non Big Four – ribbons on the trophy.

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Category: England

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JoF

liverpool played more or less a full team minus gerrard, reina and the injured torres. and gerrard was on the pitch when they conceded in the last minute!
leeds suck (u know)

huddersfield should of beaten chelsea and then got man u at home in front 25,000
Dave's Football Blog

It's kind of like last year's US Open Cup. There were only three MLS clubs in the quarterfinals of that one, mostly because a lot of clubs thought their reserve sides were good enough to beat USL clubs, and they weren't.
Ian

I'm actually a bit disappointed to see Pompey and Man U face off in the quarters. Portsmouth seemed to be the one team outside of the big four in with a chance to take this cup from them, and I would have liked to see them have an easier road. But if they can beat Man U, then it's really anyone's cup. Mostly Chelsea's, but technically anyone's.