Marco Silva was watching from the stands as Fulham produced one of the high-scoring football scores of the weekend in the FA Cup. At the Stadium of Light, the Londoners defeated the opposition 3-2 in a fourth-round replay thanks to goals from Harry Wilson in the first half, Andreas Pereira and Layvin Kurzawa in the second half, and all of this while their manager was forced to sit among the crowd of 29,651 while serving a touchline ban. Leeds, who fired head coach Jesse Marsch on Monday, will visit them as compensation. Despite a determined comeback, Sky Bet Championship Sunderland’s hopes of facing the team they famously defeated in 1973 final were dashed. Jack Clarke’s curling shot put them ahead 2-1, and replacement Jewison Bennette made it 3-2.
Eight minutes in, a young lineup—nine of Tony Mowbray’s starting eleven are under 23 years old, and 15-year-old Chris Rigg was once again among the substitutes—suffered a setback when Carlos Vinicius did well to hold off his defender and pass the ball back to Wilson, who stabbed it with the outside of his left foot into the bottom corner. The dangerous Manor Solomon, Tom Cairney, and Wilson frequently pushed the Black Cats, who despite the best efforts of the vivacious Amad Diallo and Abdoullah Ba unable to get out of their own half.
With 25 minutes remaining, Wilson might have doubled his total after intercepting Patrick Roberts’ errant cross-field pass to Aji Alese and sprinting in on goal, but Anthony Patterson easily stopped his feeble effort. Minutes later, the Wales international narrowly missed the goal after being played in by Cairney. Later in the first half, the home team started to exert more pressure on the opposition. Clarke’s deflection shot was blocked, and Amad’s dipping thunderbolt gave goalkeeper Marek Rodak a lot of trouble.
Sunderland came back from the interval still very much in the game, but Silva’s inclusion of Aleksandar Mitrovic and Pereira before the game resumed did not make their task any simpler. When Pereira broke out from far within his own half, he linked up with Solomon and Wilson to put up Cairney for a just missed shot. The Black Cats responded in kind, with Dan Neil curling just past the post from the edge of the box before Rodak had to parry Roberts’ shot. It then fell to Shane Duffy to clear the goal line in the 57th minute to prevent Amad from tying the score.
When former Newcastle striker Mitrovic sent the ball back for Pereira to score from close range, they furthered their deficit within two minutes. Clarke gave the home team a chance when he curled a shot into Rodak’s top corner in the 77th minute, but Kurzawa quickly restored the visitors’ two-goal lead, and even though substitute Bennette again cut the deficit as the game entered stoppage time, there was no turning back.
With two goals in extra time, Sheffield United put an end to non-league Wrexham’s hopes. The National League team’s trip under A-list actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney has captured the nation’s attention, and most impartial would have wanted them to arrange a glamorous matchup with Antonio Conte, Harry Kane, and other players of the same caliber. Paul Mullin’s contentious penalty that overturned Anel Ahmedhodzic’s goal in the first half of the game appeared to be part of the plan for a significant portion of the game. Mullin, who has been the Dragons’ star player for the past two seasons, stumbled when he missed a second penalty right away.
“I’m delighted we prevailed over them. Both they and we are performing well in our league, but I wasn’t delighted to see some of their players there,” Sheffield United captain Billy Sharp said. “The manner in which they behaved as a team in the lead-up to the game, spying on Spurs. They weren’t even ahead of us. They assumed we would simply give up when they got back into the game, and I believe the referee was working in their favor since I don’t believe he called a single foul on me all night.”
“To be completely honest, some of the things Billy shouted through the tunnel at the end left me feeling a little dissatisfied,” Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson said.
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