Louise Taylor was at the Stadium of Light, and her verdict has landed. Here it is! Thanks for reading this MBM. Nighty night!
Tony Mowbray’s turn to talk to the Beeb. “Frustration in the dressing room … the goals we conceded were very unlike us … we needed to get rid of that ball … but I’m very proud of the way we stuck in … the supporters kept the team going … we’re trying to build something here, trying to build a team that fights for these people who come and support us … and play football … we were playing a very good team today … ultimately they finished with just about their strongest team and that’s a credit to the way we pushed them … the individuals learned a lot … it’s a fantastic test for them … they’ve come from academies and straight into the team … we’re trying to give supporters a team to be proud of … we try to play good football and create goals … we’re really disappointed with the four minutes at the end … goodness me … ten substitutions and four goals and he puts four minutes up! … it’s almost laughable … but let’s not blame the officials, it just felt really frustrating when we were right having a go.”
Marco Silva speaks to the BBC. “Tough game … we were a little bit more under control than the first game … we managed a little bit better the ball … the pitch was not in good condition, it was not easy to play one, two touches … we created enough in the first 25 minutes to score more than one goal … the last 15 minutes of the half our pressure was not as it should be … it was important for us to score the second goal … FA Cup ties are always difficult away from home … I am really happy for the players … the FA Cup is important for us … we work hard to create a winning mentality … it is February, it is too early to talk and make a conclusion about the season, but of course we are pleased and we want more.”
Looks like Tom Cairney turned his ankle when passing up that chance late on. He’s being helped down the tunnel by the Fulham staff.
Fulham striker Aleksandar Mitrovic, formerly of nearby concern Newcastle United, speaks to the BBC. “We conceded two sloppy goals … credit to them, they pressed really good … but in the end we managed to score three goals and we are really happy … I would be more happy if I’d grabbed a goal before … but overall I am really happy … [some pantomime booing from the remaining Sunderland fans] … I’m a Geordie boy so they don’t like me here! … but it’s a good atmosphere … I’m sure a lot of Newcastle fans will be really happy as well!”
Harry Wilson adds: “I haven’t hit the form I’ve wanted to, so it’s nice to get on the scoresheet tonight, and hopefully a few more will follow now.”
Sunderland made Fulham work for that. For a club in the doldrums for far too long, they look to be heading in the right direction now. But it’s also true that the scoreline slightly flatters them tonight. Fulham were deserving winners, the better side over the whole 90 minutes plus. They’ll host Leeds on the week commencing 27 February.
FULL TIME: Sunderland 2-3 Fulham
Nope. Fulham can start thinking about the fifth-round visit of Leeds United! Sunderland can concentrate on their promotion bid.
90 min +5: Alese throws long from the left. A mild kerfuffle in the Fulham box, but Cairney volleys clear. Then suddenly Fulham are three on one! Cairney romps all the way into the Sunderland box only to take a heavy touch and allow Patterson to gather. Enough time for Sunderland to launch one Hail Mary hoof forward?
90 min +4: Rodak takes his sweet time over the goal kick. The referee theatrically restarts his watch. Expect an extra minute at least.
90 min +3: The corner’s hit long. Ballard heads harmlessly wide right. Pereira goes down and requires a moment to gather himself. The referee will surely add on a few more seconds now.
90 min +2: Tony Mowbray is unhappy with the officials’ award of just four minutes of added time. The clock’s certainly not on his team’s side. But they’ve got a chance! Pritchard swings in from the left. Tosun heads nervously behind for a corner. Up comes the keeper Patterson!
GOAL! Sunderland 2-3 Fulham (Bennette 90+1)
Mere seconds into added time, Ballard flicks a header on down the inside-right channel. Kurzawa slips, allowing Bennette to take a touch into the box and thrash a fine shot across Rodak and into the top left! It looked all over! It certainly isn’t yet!
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90 min: There will be four added minutes.
88 min: That half-chance for Batth, taken off his head by Hume, looks to have represented the end of Sunderland’s efforts tonight. They suddenly look out of both ideas and puff.
86 min: A party breaks out in the away end. “There’s only one team in Fulham,” their support sing, with neighbours Chelsea out of the cup and one place below them in the Premier League.
84 min: The stands are emptying of disappointed home punters, but this isn’t over quite yet. Sunderland respond by winning their first corner of the night, down the right. The set piece is swung into the mixer. Batth is about to head powerfully goalward, when his team-mate Hume rises in front of him and flicks harmlessly wide left.
GOAL! Sunderland 1-3 Fulham (Kurzawa 82)
… a game of head tennis breaks out. Sunderland can’t clear. They try, but they fail. Duffy dinks a half-clearance back into the six-yard box. Kurzawa reacts first, and nearly bursts the net with a volley from close range. What a response to conceding by Fulham!
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81 min: A long pass down the Fulham right. Batth and Patterson confuse each other on the edge of the box under pressure from Pereira, conceding a needless corner. And it’s costly, because from it …
80 min: Fulham replace Solomon with James. After the restart, O’Nien drags a shot wide through a crowded box, but somehow doesn’t earn a corner with a deflection.
79 min: Sunderland may be in the process of writing a fairytale here … because they send on Chris Rigg, who is 15 years and 235 days old. Rigg had a late effort disallowed at Craven Cottage. Had he not been offside, he’d have become the youngest scorer in FA Cup history. He’s got another chance to enter the record books now! Ba makes way.
78 min: That came out of nothing, with Sunderland looking kaput. But what a finish! The home crowd, previously pensive, are up for this again now!
GOAL! Sunderland 1-2 Fulham (Clarke 77)
… and now Sunderland are right back in it! Alese makes ground down the left. He reaches the byline and cuts back for Clarke, who takes a touch on the edge of the box, shifts his feet, and carefully steers a glorious shot around Duffy and into the top right! Rodak had no chance! Game on!
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75 min: Fulham nearly score another fine team goal. Reed, Mitrovic and Pereira ping some nice triangles down the inside-right channel, the latter creaming a rising shot intended for the top left over the bar. That would have settled it for sure.
73 min: Reed stands on the ball and allows Ekwah the opportunity of a shot at goal from 25 yards. Ekwah scuffs it wide right, Rodak covering it all the way. But both subs have instantly injected some energy into Sunderland’s play.
72 min: … then Ekwah takes the place of Michut. Bennette is immediately on the front foot, making good down the middle, only for Reed to put a stop to his gallop.
71 min: Diallo makes way for Bennette …
69 min: Ba is surrounded by three Fulham players, the visitors looking much hungrier right now, despite, or maybe because of, their two-goal cushion. Solomon goes barrelling down the right and lays off to Pereira on the overlap. Pereira crosses, only to hit his own man Solomon, who had continued his run. Sunderland, who were light at the back there, get away with one.
67 min: Reed, barely up to speed, lets O’Nien strip him in the centre circle. He releases Ba into space. The ball’s shuttled wide right to Diallo, who can’t get past Tosin. Looking back, Ba may feel he’d have done better taking a chance with a shot himself.
65 min: Fulham make a double change too, their second of the evening. Decordova-Reid and Reed come on for Tete and Palhinha.
64 min: Sunderland make a double change. On come O’Nien and Pritchard, off go Roberts and Neil.
63 min: A reminder that Sunderland haven’t won an FA Cup tie at home since 2015. A 1-0 victory over Leeds. Patrick van Aanholt with the only goal, since you ask.
62 min: Neil powers his way into the Fulham box from the right. He shapes to shoot from six yards only to be agriculturally shouldered off the ball by Mitrovic, of all people. Sunderland want a penalty, but the referee isn’t the least bit interested.
61 min: Batth and Ballard kind of assumed that ball was going out for a corner, and it’s cost Sunderland. Mitrovic wasn’t similarly hanging around. Again, not great defensively from a Sunderland point of view, but it was a lovely team goal from Fulham’s perspective.
GOAL! Sunderland 0-2 Fulham (Pereira 59)
The subs combine to put some clear water between the teams. Cairney struts down the left before whipping a low ball into the path of Mitrovic, who is racing down the inside-left channel. Mitrovic takes a touch then shoots. Patterson spreads and blocks bravely, and the ball looks like it’s spinning out wide left for a corner. But Mitrovic doesn’t let it lie, cutting back cleverly from the byline and teeing up Pereira, who couldn’t miss. Fulham with one foot in the fifth round!
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58 min: Solomon sashays in from the left and cuts back for Tete, who creams a shot goalwards from the edge of the box. Ballard throws himself in the road to block. This is a rip-roaring cup tie now!
57 min: Sunderland are getting closer and closer! Diallo dribbles at pace down the right, enters the box, then cuts inside to see off Kurzawa with ease. He whips a shot past Rodak from a tight angle … only for Duffy, falling backwards, to hack clear off the line! The Stadium of Light is bouncing now.
56 min: The first booking of the evening, and it’s Duffy, who hauls down Clarke as he makes good down the left flank. Everyone lines up on the edge of the box. Roberts wafts the free kick into the mixer. Batth sends a weak header wide left and high.
54 min: Sunderland are taking it up a level. Roberts twists and turns inside the Fulham box, down the inside left, and slams a shot goalwards from a tight angle. Rodak does well to parry and there’s nobody in Sunderland red and white to pounce on the rebound.
53 min: Diallo busies his way down the right, reaches the touchline, and pulls back for Neil, who from the edge of the area pulls a sidefoot inches wide of the left-hand post.
52 min: Solomon drives down the Fulham left and cuts back for Wilson. He in turn tees up Cairney, who fizzes a low drive inches wide of the right-hand post.
51 min: Clarke dances in from the left wing and causes Fulham some momentary pain. But they surround the young man who has no options and is eventually forced to turn tail.
49 min: Wilson now clips an in-flight Alese as the Sunderland defender advances down the right. He must be testing the referee’s patience now.
47 min: Wilson deliberately handles while contesting an aerial ball with Alese. No idea how he’s not gone into the book, but here we are. The referee won over by his cheeky smile, maybe.
Sunderland get the ball rolling. Fulham have made an aggressive double change, replacing Vinicius and Harris with Mitrovic and Pereira. Speaking of subs, here’s Peter Oh: “Being behind and needing a spark, it seems to me that the Black Cats will need to use all O’ their Nien lives in the second half if they are to survive this round.” He’s here all week, ladies and gentlemen. Try the panackelty.
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HALF TIME: Sunderland 0-1 Fulham
Fulham have been the better side; Harry Wilson alone could have had a hat-trick. But Sunderland came back into it during the last 15 minutes of the half, with Amad Diallo in particular causing the Premier League visitors some trouble. The Championship side not out of this yet.
45 min: Clarke embarks on a positive run down the left, but Tete gets ahead of him and draws the foul. More frustration for the home fans.
44 min: A long punt into the Sunderland half. Wilson nearly gets on the end of it, the ball rearing up with a bit of backspin, perhaps also held up by the wind. Patterson races out of his box to head clear.
43 min: Fulham slow it down a bit, perhaps realising Sunderland were getting up a head of steam as half-time approaches. Their sterile possession has quietened the crowd, too.
42 min: Clarke nearly opens Fulham up with a forensic pass down the left flank. He’d have released Alese into the box had Duffy not read the danger and telescoped a leg.
40 min: This game’s being played at 101 miles per hour. Gotta stay warm.
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38 min: There’s a nice end-to-end feel about this. Tosin nearly sends Wilson clear with a long ball down the middle. Patterson comes out of his box to deal with the situation. Sunderland counter, and Solomon is fairly fortunate not to go into the book for an incessant tug on Neil.
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36 min: Ba plays a glorious reverse pass down the inside-right channel to set Diallo off on his way. Diallo offers Kurzawa the ball, then turns on the jets to race clear with it. He enters the box but faces a tight angle, so looks for someone with a pullback instead. He doesn’t find anyone. May as well have taken a high-tariff whack at goal.
34 min: Michut attempts to break into the Fulham box down the left. He goes over in the area, but Palhinha has made a perfectly timed tackle. The crowd nevertheless remain on full miff. They’re not happy with the ref at all.
33 min: … and this is much better, Diallo dropping a shoulder to sashay in from the right, then sending a curling dipper that Rodak struggles to stop. He blocks it, but the ball balloons straight up in the air. Ba gets to the rebound first but can only slice wildly into the stand behind.
32 min: Now it’s Cairney’s turn to make a mistake, gifting Ba the chance to have a whack from distance. The shot is blocked, but that’s got the crowd going. It’s been necessary; they’d been getting a little irritated with the way this is panning out.
31 min: Wilson could quite easily have scored a 21-minute hat-trick. The small margins in top-level professional sport.
29 min: Fulham nearly score a second, and from a Sunderland perspective it would have been a total fiasco. Sunderland take a throw deep in Fulham territory. It goes towards Neil, who dallies for an absurd amount of time, allowing Cairney to flick him off the ball and power forward. He lays off to Wilson, who cuts in from the right before whistling a low shot inches wide of the bottom left. Patterson was never getting to it.
27 min: Ballard handballs in the midfield. Fulham take an age over the free kick. The referee tells Cairney to get a bloody move on. It’s far too early for time-wasting.
25 min: Roberts gifts the ball to Wilson, who tears off down the inside-right channel before gliding infield and passing a shot towards the bottom right. Too tame, and easy for Patterson. He should have leathered it in the 1930s style. Meanwhile Richard Hirst is back: “Objectively you are right, Mary Waltz, but subjectively … I’m a Fulham supporter and with that comes a certain pessimism, especially after two successive one-season relegations. If/when we get to 40 points I might relax!”
23 min: Sunderland keep the ball awhile. They don’t really go anywhere. Suddenly they ship possession and Fulham break through Solomon, who dribbles in the old-school busy style down the left wing. He enters the box, shifting this way and that in the hope of making space for a shot. He can’t quite do it, and eventually opts to cross. An easy claim for Patterson.
21 min: That was better from Sunderland, who crackled in attack for the first time this evening. “Regarding Richard Hirst’s pre-match question about why Saša Lukić isn’t playing, he can’t (and neither can Cedric Soares),” reports John Foster. “Players aren’t eligible for an FA Cup replay if they weren’t registered for the first leg. Yes, I learned this fact this week.”
19 min: Ba makes a determined run down the middle of the park and slips Diallo into the box on the right. Diallo cuts back for Roberts, whose shot is easily blocked by Palhinha.
18 min: Kurzawa sticks out a leg to bring down Diallo, who was in the process of turning him inside out on the right touchline. Cynical, and he’s fortunate not to go into the book.
17 min: Tosin, Fulham’s last man, batters a clearance straight at Diallo, but gets away with it, the rebound pinging back to him rather than allowing the Sunderland forward to run at goal. The visitors got away with one there.
15 min: Mary Waltz sends in an email “with the utmost respect towards Mr Hirst regarding Fulham’s tactics. They have had an outstanding rebound from the Championship. They are secure from relegation. They are too far out for Champions League. The chance for a FA Cup trophy after promotion would be a stunning achievement. I would go for it.” And they do indeed seem to be going for it. They’ve been on the front foot since the get-go and look dangerous every time they cross the halfway line. Sunderland need to hold firm here and limit the damage.
13 min: Diallo falls over in the Fulham box and makes a half-hearted claim for a penalty kick. There was little or no contact, and the referee shows no interest. The home fans don’t really push the point too much either.
11 min: Ah, but they’re soon up as one to applaud the memory of Sunderland supporter Chris Collier, a retired Parachute Regiment captain and admin for a fans’ forum who recently passed. A touching moment.
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10 min: That’s taken a bit of the air out of the Stadium of Light. The home fans roar defiantly for a few seconds, but soon drop their energy again.
GOAL! Sunderland 0-1 Fulham (Wilson 8)
Tete swings a cross in from the right. Ballard heads the ball straight up in the air. Vinicius makes a nuisance of himself and tees up Wilson on the penalty spot. Wilson steers a shot towards the bottom right. Patterson should tip around the post, but his hand is weak, and the ball squirts into the corner. Fulham lead!
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8 min: A free kick for Fulham out on the right. The ball’s rolled to the flank for Wilson, who tees up Cairney infield. Cairney has a whack but Ballard charges him down. Blocked and cleared. However, Fulham come again, and …
6 min: Duffy pearls a glorious long pass down the inside-left channel for Solomon, who attempts to shoot from a tight angle but is forced to settle for a corner. It leads to nothing. What a pass from deep, though!
5 min: Kurzawa, Solomon and Vinicius combine well as Fulham shift the ball in from the left flank. Vinicius shapes to shoot but is closed down before he can let fly.
3 min: Clarke runs with purpose down the left before shuttling the ball over towards Diallo on the other flank. Diallo runs down a cul-de-sac and the impetus is gone.
2 min: Roberts is soon up again. No lounging around on the turf. It’s very cold tonight.
Fulham get the ball rolling. The game’s soon stopped as Roberts takes an accidental whack in the mush, courtesy of Kurzawa.
The teams are out! A freezing night on Wearside. Sunderland wear their red and white stripes, while Fulham sport their first-choice white. A fine FA Cup atmosphere at the Stadium of Light, but also plenty of pre-match nerves. “Much as I love Marco Silva I can’t understand why he is playing Palhinha tonight, rather than giving Lukic an introduction to English football,” writes Richard Hirst. “Palhinha is a fantastic tackler but his preferred technique of sliding in from 30 yards away to win the ball is great to watch but is only a millisecond’s mistiming away from a yellow card or worse. We need him for the Premier League rather than the luxury of the Cup.” We’ll be off in a second or three.
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Marco Silva – who will be watching from the stands tonight after picking up a fourth yellow card of the season at Chelsea last Friday – talks to the Beeb. “It will be different and strange [to watch from the stand] … everything will be the same until kick-off and half-time will be the same as well, I will be with the players … our job is to prepare well … the feedback normally they receive from the bench they will receive as always … I will be in a different spot but with a better view to analyse!”
Tony Mowbray speaks to the BBC and is asked about the potential of a repeat of the 1973 FA Cup final in the next round. “I don’t think we’ll get dragged into the next round, let’s deal with this one … we had an amazing game at Fulham … we asked the team to challenge themselves against Premier League players … we asked them to express themselves and compete and that’s what we’re asking them to do tonight, to test their talent, drive and ambition … sometimes when you play against a top team there’s fear … but we’re going to try to play on the front foot like we did at Craven Cottage and hopefully it’ll make for another good game.”
Why do we put ourselves through it? This is why we put ourselves through it.
Sunderland boss Tony Mowbray makes one change to the starting XI sent out at Craven Cottage last week. Abdoullah Ba replaces the Achilles-stricken Ross Stewart.
Fulham coach Marco Silva makes two changes of his own from that match. Shane Duffy and Luke Harris replace Issa Diop and Andreas Pereira, who drop to the bench.
The teams
Sunderland: Patterson, Hume, Batth, Ballard, Alese, Neil, Michut, Roberts, Ba, Clarke, Amad.
Subs: Bass, O’Nien, Bennette, Pritchard, Rigg, Kelly, Ekwah, Johnson, Watson.
Fulham: Rodak, Tete, Tosin, Duffy, Kurzawa, Palhinha, Cairney, Harris, Wilson, Vinicius, Solomon.
Subs: Leno, Robinson, Diop, Reed, Pereira, James, Decordova-Reid, Willian, Mitrovic.
🚨 Tony Mowbray's XI.
— Sunderland AFC (@SunderlandAFC) February 8, 2023
Let's go! 🔴⚪️⚫️#SAFC | #EmiratesFACup
Tonight’s XI! 🚨#SUNFUL pic.twitter.com/TQzPCJqe5D
— Fulham Football Club (@FulhamFC) February 8, 2023
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Preamble
A couple of weekends ago, this happened …
… and so to the Stadium of Light we go. The winners of this replay will host Leeds United in the fifth round, so a potential re-run of the 1973 final is a live possibility, fifty years down the line. Can Fulham nix that narrative? We’ll find out tonight, even if it takes extra time and penalties. Kick off is at 7.45pm GMT. It’s on!
