Clarets and Oldham lead the way with Worthington shocks

The Clarets fantastically beat Spurs at the Turf but the night before Wigan ended KKMC’s hopes with a 1-0 win at the JJB whilst Preston won 2-0 at Birmingham and last night a goal by Carlo Corazzin from a David Eyres corner won the day for Oldham against The Sinister One Glenn Roeder and West Ham.

Oldham celebrate ..........

It wasn’t just the North West though and over in Yorkshire two late, late goals for Sheffield United saw them put Leeds out 2-1 to make it a miserable night for barrow boy Venables whilst down in Suffolk Ipswich easily beat Middlesbrough.

Performance of the round is a difficult one but it really has to be a choice between Oldham and the Clarets. Oldham won away but no club currently higher in the Premiership than Spurs went out to a Nationwide League club. In fact the only one of the top five out are Arsenal who were beaten by Sunderland 3-2 after leading 2-0.

With both Liverpool clubs, Manchester United through and Blackburn scraping it on penalties against Walsall that means half of the clubs through to the 5^th round are from the North West which means there could well be a few local matches in the next round.

.......... but The Sinister One doesn't see the funny side

Manchester United, no longer a club assured of winning trophies, are now taking this competition seriously and they fielder a much stronger side than would normally be expected with Beckham, Ferdinand, Forlan, Solksaer and both Neville sisters starting with Veron and Scholes both being used as subs. They beat Leicester 2-0 whilst league leaders Liverpool’s much changed side won through against Southampton.

One of the highlights of the round though had to be Rotherham’s win at Franchise. After securing the worst draw of the round it was imperative that the Millers won through given the fact that they wouldn’t make any money out of it. It is sad that any club has to go and play them but two weeks in succession is a bit unfair.

There were 849 there for the league game last week but this time there were just 664 packed in to Selhurst Park as the Pariahs of English football actually went in front. Rotherham stormed back though to give themselves another chance to try and make some money out of the competition.

That leaves us with eight Premiership club, six First Division clubs and two from the Second Division to go into the draw for the 4^th round, a draw that will once again take place when football fans are away from their televisions on the way to see their teams play – at 2:30 p.m. this Saturday.

Those through are:

Premiership: Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea, Everton, Fulham, Liverpool, Manchester United and Sunderland.

Division One: Burnley, Crystal Palace, Ipswich Town, Preston North End, Rotherham United, Sheffield United.

Division Two: Oldham Athletic, Wigan Athletic.