It’s the Oldest Cup Competition in the World! But it’s fighting for relevance in the modern game! But third-round weekend! Cardboard FA Cups covered in tinfoil! Local butchers doing horrible-looking sausages in plucky local side’s colours! Games on free-to-air TV that your dad still calls “terrestrial” despite that word being chiefly meaningless in 21st century broadcasting! Isn’t it? Hmm? Marvellous.
But who’s going to win the most important of the unimportant trophies this time around? Here are the 10 leading contenders according to the best prices available at oddschecker.com as of… now.
1. Manchester City
The FA Cup is actually the one domestic competition City haven’t dominated in the Guardiola Era. They’ve won four of the last five Premier League titles and six of the last nine Carabaos, but only one FA Cup in the last decade. But they hammered Chelsea 4-0 in the third round and will have the chance to put another of their direct rivals out if Arsenal manage to beat Oxford.
2. Man Utd
A monumental jump from sixth to second in the running, which will happen when a) Newcastle are surprisingly knocked out, b) Spurs limp past League One opposition, c) Arsenal are yet to play, d) Liverpool continue to be more than a bit pants and e) Man Utd get a 427th home draw in a row in the fourth round. David de Gea quite hilariously made his team work for it but Everton were soon dealt with at Old Trafford and Erik ten Hag might pick up the trophy scent soon.
3. Tottenham
The competition that most clearly marks out the Spursy niche in which English football’s pre-eminent banter club operates. Only Arsenal and Manchester United have won more than Spurs’ total of eight FA Cups, but they haven’t so much as reached a final since the days of Gascoigne and Lineker (and Des Walker extra-time own goals) in 1991. The dominance of the other five Big Six teams has secured them 26 of the 30 FA Cups in the Premier League era, yet Spurs’ contribution to that is nothing more than a string of variably shambolic semi-final exits. Teams to reach the FA Cup final more recently than Spurs include: Leicester, Watford, Crystal Palace, Aston Villa, Hull, Wigan, Stoke, Portsmouth, Everton, Cardiff, West Ham, Millwall, Southampton, Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Everton, Sheffield Wednesday and Sunderland. It is an absurd and very, very funny list. Spurs are still third favourites for this season’s trophy, though, and still you sort of think that maybe…
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