Here are the games to be played in the fifth round of the FA Cup ( February 16 and 17).
16 teams in all
6 from the Premiership- Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Middlesbrough, Portsmouth
8 from the Championship- Southampton, Coventry, West Brom, Preston North End, Wolves, Sheffield United, Barnsley, Cardiff City
2 from League One- Huddersfield Town, Bristol Rovers
Manchester United vs Arsenal
Bristol Rovers vs Southampton
Liverpool vs Barnsley
PNE vs Portsmouth
This round of games had some interesting fixtures on paper. Believe it or not, all the games on the 29th had the winning teams keeping clean sheets.
Arsenal 3-0 Newcastle ( Emmanuel Adebayor, Mathieu Flamini, Cesc Fabregas)
Newcastle didn’t pose a threat all to the Gunners, and slumped to their eight defeat in 12 games away from St.James’ Park. Dennis Wise would surely not have been impressed.
The Ivory Coast had a splendid opportunity to send rivals Nigeria out of the African Cup of Nations. Instead they did the Super Eagles a huge favour by beating Mali 3-0, and Nigeria qualified by virtue of their 2-0 over Reinhard Fabisch’s Benin. If Nigeria had failed to qualify , it would have been their first group stage elimination since 1982.