FA Cup: Plenty of Tottenham and Liverpool positives after progress

Michael Lintorn
21 January 2016

Michel Vorm enjoyed his first Tottenham clean sheet of the campaign away to Leicester

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Son Heung-min's form and Jurgen Klopp's cup pedigree give Tottenham and Liverpool hope of a major FA Cup impact...

"The key contribution of Son Heung-min, who scored a brilliant goal and followed up with a similarly sublime assist for Nacer Chadli to complete the victory, in particular hints that the Lilywhites have sufficient depth to compete on three fronts."

There were a few eyebrows raised when the likes of Hugo Lloris, Dele Alli and Harry Kane were selected as substitutes by Mauricio Pochettino for Tottenham's FA Cup third-round replay away to Leicester despite the same policy almost leading to elimination in the initial tie at White Hart Lane.

As has so often been the case in the last 18 months, the Argentine was justified as his side made the breakthrough without any of the trio or starting centre backs Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen on the pitch, doing what only two teams had done all term and beating Leicester in 90 minutes.

The key contribution of Son Heung-min, who scored a brilliant goal and followed up with a similarly sublime assist for Nacer Chadli to complete the victory, in particular hints that the Lilywhites have sufficient depth to compete on three fronts.

The South Korea international was a protagonist for Bayer Leverkusen as they finished fourth in the Bundesliga in 2013/14 and 2014/15 - hitting double figures both times - but has been limited to five Premier League starts to date, so has far more to offer even if some of those around him burn out.

With a fourth-round trip to League One strugglers Colchester on the horizon, Spurs are in to 9.617/2 fifth favouritism and Betting.Betfair recently uncovered the trend that three of the last seven FA Cup winners were forced to face their third-round opponents twice before advancing.

Liverpool will be hoping that they too can further improve that conversion rate after taking down League Two club Exeter at the second attempt, prevailing 3-0 at Anfield despite again trusting a load of youngsters amidst a fixture pile-up.

That is going to be an issue once more in the next round when they host a West Ham squad who did the double over them in the Premier League four days after the second leg of their Capital One Cup semi-final second leg with Stoke and three days before a top-flight trek to the King Power Stadium.

Jurgen Klopp's cup record in Germany affords Reds backers cause for optimism at 13.012/1. He reached three DFB Pokal finals in his closing four campaigns at Borussia Dortmund, losing a quarter-final to eventual winners Bayern Munich in the exception.

If a treble-digit candidate is more to your tastes, you may be interested to know that Portsmouth are on their best FA Cup run since somehow venturing to the final during their administration-accelerated Premier League relegation season of 2009/10.

They fell at the first hurdle in each of their next five entries, yet have already cleared three under Paul Cook's guidance this term, removing Championship promotion seekers Ipswich last time out.

On the previous two occasions that they pushed past three foes, they wound up in the final, yet the resurgent south-coast side, who welcome Bournemouth later this month, are 360.0359/1 outsiders.

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