The draw for the third round of the FA Cup took place on Monday evening at Anfield stadium, home of current FA Cup holders Liverpool, and Tottenham Hotspur were ostensibly dealt a decent hand by lady luck by being pitted against Danny Cowley’s Portsmouth at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
I say that, and that is exactly the attitude that came back to haunt me when we were pitted against relegated Pompey in the FA Cup Semi-Finals of 2010, our last competitive encounter against the South-coast outfit (I don’t need to spell out how that went do I? Oh go on then…)
Of course, we’ve made a hash of facing lower-league opposition in the cups in recent years, crashing out to Colchester United towards Poch’s demise, and getting knocked out by a buoyant Middlesbrough just under 9 months ago, so we cannot take anything for granted…not even a chance to see Dane Scarlett, who is currently on loan at the League One and may very well miss out on the opportunity to face his parent club. We will see.
Ties for the third round are to be played on the weekend of January 7th 2023. Below is the draw in full, and the eagle-eyed readers may very well spot some all-Premiership encounters (let’s hope you can spot them, as I’ve highlighted them in bold!).
These encounters hardly tend to live up to their much-hyped expectations in my book, and I expect no different this time around. However, I’ve been wrong before and will be wrong again, so I repeat a much-favoured phrase of mine…we will see…