FA Cup 3rd Round Draw

We will host Blackpool the 5/6th of Jan. Not a bad draw. Certainly better than West Ham getting Utd. :shock:

 

Beat me to it SC, glad to see a home match, and hoping for the squad to get healthy in order to have a chance in making a deep run in the competition. ray:

 

Eminently winnable. Which means we'll struggle. Still, can't complain at all. Just gotta take care of business. No more Ian Holloway, either, which should help.

 

Exactly the type of draw...that Fulham will lose. Damn it.

 

I think it is comes down to the fact our preseason was haunted by losing Dempsey. But we started off with a bang. We lost Dembele, then we still came back. Then we lost Berbatov and came back. Then we lost Ruiz, Kaca, and Hangeland, but haven't won. Though I still say a draw at the bridge was a good result. It has been a roller coaster start and we are all holding our breath to see where we go next.

The Cups have never been our strong suit barring 1975 (which I wasn't alive for). I am criticized by my Everton buddy at times for just wanting to stay up, but I think this year we need to revise our expectations as a rebuilding year.

A win at Newcastle will solve all wounds. And with all their injuries and us getting back to full strength, I like our chances.

 

All good points, folks, but the bottom line is, we should be able to handle Blackpool at the Cottage...whichever league they're in.

 

This is the kind of match we usually lose, but with our league form- it'd be really nice to do SOMETHING in a cup this year. Hopefully, it'll be all hands on deck (Ruiz, might not be back yet- but surely Duff and Sidwell should be back in the lineup to stabilize the midfield a bit) and we can handle it. I'm not super optimistic about this, but as often as we've struggled in matches like this- we've also utterly killed lower league teams like Charlton and Notts County at home in recent years, so we're just as likely to win 4-0 as we are to lose 0-1 in my book.

~ Steve