The third round of the FA Cup kicked off this week five months after the initial preliminary qualifying stage of the competition.
Jay Malshanskyj of the wonderfully named eighth-tier outfit Bishop’s Cleeve scored the tournament’s first goal at 19:48 on 4 August 2023, just 66 seconds into the first game of this season’s FA Cup. The campaign has been swollen with excitement and intrigue ever since, with teams from England’s top two tiers adding to the spectacle in the always highly anticipated third round.
Bishop’s Cleeve had their fast start cut short in September but 64 teams still remained to duke out an entertaining slate of fixtures this week. Here are the sides that will be in the hat for the fourth-round draw.
Each team to have won their FA Cup third-round tie and advanced to the fourth round of the competition is listed below:
Tottenham Hotspur, Fulham, Ipswich Town, Coventry City, Maidstone United, Leicester City, Newcastle United, Blackburn Rovers, Sheffield United, Plymouth Argyle, Bournemouth, Southampton, Brighton & Hove Albion, Watford, Chelsea, Aston Villa, Sheffield Wednesday, Swansea City.
Much to the disdain of some Premier League managers, replays are still used at this stage of the cup for teams that cannot be separated after the first encounter. Brentford boss Thomas Frank was particularly perturbed by the format structure, lamenting: “The FA or whoever is in charge of this need to take some more clever decisions.”
The following matches were drawn and subjected to a fate Frank implied was worse than defeat, a replay in mid-January at the opposite stadiums:
|
Date |
Match |
|---|---|
|
04/01/24 |
Crystal Palace 0-0 Everton |
|
05/01/24 |
Brentford 1-1 Wolves |
|
06/01/24 |
Hull City 1-1 Birmingham City |
|
06/01/24 |
Newport County 1-1 Eastleigh |
|
06/01/24 |
Norwich 1-1 Bristol Rovers |
After Thursday’s painfully forgettable goalless draw between Crystal Palace and Everton to limply open the third round, Tottenham Hotspur and Fulham advanced against Burnley and Rotherham United respectively in Friday night ties that weren’t much livelier.
The pulse of the round mercifully quickened on Saturday afternoon. Sunderland boss Michael Beale described the Wear-Tyne lunchtime derby as “the tie of the round”, boasting: “The whole nation’s looking forward to it.” Beale’s Black Cats were comfortably beaten 3-0 by Newcastle United, suffering their first derby defeat since 2011.
However, the story of day was stolen by sixth-tier Maidstone United. The lowest-ranked club in the third round defeated League One’s Stevenage courtesy of Sam Corne’s first-half penalty.
|
Date |
Result |
|---|---|
|
04/01/24 |
Crystal Palace 0-0 Everton |
|
05/01/24 |
Brentford 1-1 Wolves |
|
05/01/24 |
Fulham 1-0 Rotherham United |
|
05/01/24 |
Tottenham 1-0 Burnley |
|
06/01/24 |
AFC Wimbledon 1-3 Ipswich Town |
|
06/01/24 |
Coventry City 6-2 Oxford United |
|
06/01/24 |
Maidstone United 1-0 Stevenage |
|
06/01/24 |
Millwall 2-3 Leicester City |
|
06/01/24 |
Sunderland 0-3 Newcastle |
|
06/01/24 |
Blackburn 5-2 Cambridge United |
|
06/01/24 |
Gillingham 0-4 Sheffield United |
|
06/01/24 |
Hull City 1-1 Birmingham City |
|
06/01/24 |
Newport County 1-1 Eastleigh |
|
06/01/24 |
Norwich 1-1 Bristol Rovers |
|
06/01/24 |
Plymouth 3-1 Sutton United |
|
06/01/24 |
QPR 2-3 Bournemouth |
|
06/01/24 |
Southampton 4-0 Walsall |
|
06/01/24 |
Stoke 2-4 Brighton |
|
06/01/24 |
Watford 2-1 Chesterfield |
|
06/01/24 |
Chelsea 4-0 Preston |
|
06/01/24 |
Middlesbrough 0-1 Aston Villa |
|
06/01/24 |
Sheffield Wednesday 4-0 Cardiff |
|
06/01/24 |
Swansea 2-0 Morecambe |
Manchester United’s trip to Wigan Athletic has been saved for the final fixture of the third round before the replays later in the month. The Latics have lost their last four matches against United by an aggregate score of 0-14. The last Wigan player to find United’s net was current manager Shaun Maloney in 2012.
Premier League side’s Arsenal and Liverpool clash on Sunday evening while reigning champions Manchester City are in action earlier in the day.
|
Date / Kick-off time (GMT) |
Fixture |
|---|---|
|
07/01/24 – 14:00 |
Luton vs Bolton |
|
07/01/24 – 14:00 |
Man City vs Huddersfield |
|
07/01/24 – 14:00 |
Nottingham Forest vs Blackpool |
|
07/01/24 – 14:00 |
Peterborough vs Leeds |
|
07/01/24 – 14:00 |
Shrewsbury Town vs Wrexham |
|
07/01/24 – 14:00 |
West Brom vs Aldershot Town |
|
07/01/24 – 14:00 |
West Ham vs Bristol |
|
07/01/24 – 16:30 |
Arsenal vs Liverpool |
|
08/01/24 – 20:15 |
Wigan vs Man Utd |
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