Cup runneth over…

Morning folks,

I don’t know if this is a hangover from no EPL games on New Year’s Day but I actually found myself enjoying the early rounds of FA Cup for the first time in years this weekend. Some good games (Villa v Gillingham, second half of Spurs and Wigan) and some surprisingly decent highlight programmes from ITV – made all the more bearable if you head for a can when the pundits appear.

It all finished up last night with Blackburn churning their way through against a team over 110 places beneath them and while it was a second string side from Blackburn it did at least give an indication of how poor their reserves are and in turn give hope for all those wishing a long, tough slog for Samio Allardicio this season.

For those who are Allardyce apologists remember that that foreign bastardization of his name was his own; when he made the claim that he would be far more respected if he was foreign considering his achievements at Bolton. Nope Sam, we’d all be wondering why this foreign fella has his team playing such shite football not seeing you get one of the big jobs in English football. Delusional arse that ya are.

Ah, that was nice… I started out on a positive note and ended up hating Sam Allardyce, now that’s the magic of the Cup in a nutshell surely???

This year’s competition should be decent enough what with the title race being so tight, not to mention the tricky Champions League draw all round for English sides. Each of the top four – with the exception of Man United because of their disgustingly brilliant last two seasons – need a trophy badly. Any will do, so this should see an interesting competition until the final stages. Throw in the 20-year anniversary for Hillsborough; some decent challenges from other EPL sides and there’s potential for plenty of drama to banish the memory of that shocking final last year.

There will of course be plenty of dross along the way, and horrific media coverage (watch out for someone tying together these three strands: recession; return to old fashioned ideals; and of course the FA Cup… I can hear ye shuddering from here). It may only be some tit like David Pleat but it’ll happen and it’ll be nauseating. However, even those of us at ODF would have to admit the competition made a good start was made this weekend.

Later, JJ