FA Cup Preview – The Sunday Games

Crawley v Stoke Crawley welcome Stoke with an upset in mind, this team relishes in being labelled underdogs and their brusque manager will send them out in front of a home crowd, expecting to give Stoke a fright,  I’m sure Crawley would have preferred to be playing either of the two Manchester clubs but seeing as neither have got as far as Crawley, they will have to face Stoke instead. Stoke are not likely to be fazed at facing “plucky underdogs”, they’ve been given that title enough times to know what it means and that full concentration will be needed to do a professional job and see off the League 1 side. Stoke are at evens to win this game but because I can see it going to a replay, I’m staying out of it.   Stevenage v Tottenham Tottenham travel to Stevenage with their sights set on progressing to the next round, for once the waters are relatively calm at Tottenham, the court case is resolved, the England decision looks to have been put off for a while yet and injured players are returning to boost a squad heading into the crucial point of the season. Stevenage have a league winner (of the MLS) in charge and he will be well motivated to get his side firing on all cylinders in this game, he was once on the Arsenal payroll and still has good connections there, a win for his Stevenage side would make his day as well as his Chairmans and supporters. I expect Tottenham to put out a fairly strong side for this one, Van Der Vaart still isn’t fit so will miss out again, giving a chance for Niko Kranjcar to extend his run in the side. I’d say this one will be a fairly regular Tottenham win but the bookies have it sewn up tight so it’s another no-bet for me.   Liverpool v Brighton This is one of the matches we recently covered in a video with SBR so instead of repeating myself, I’ll just put it in here for you:   ]]>