FA Cup quarter-final draw LIVE: Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United learn fate

The FA Cup fifth round takes place this week – with an important change to the rules of the competition.

The old tradition of drawn Cup ties being replayed still applies to the third and fourth rounds, but fifth-round replays were scrapped during the 2018-19 season as part of a gradual slimming down of the tournament.

So every round from the fifth onwards will be decided by one tie, with extra-time and a penalty shootout available to settle drawn games.

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Mauricio Pochettino finds constant talk of Chelsea’s billion-pound spend tiresome and remains convinced his under-fire players will develop into “an amazing team”.

Blues boss Pochettino has overseen an underwhelming campaign since arriving at Stamford Bridge last summer and his expensively-assembled squad faced further criticism following Sunday’s Carabao Cup final loss to Liverpool.

Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville branded them “blue billion-pound bottle jobs” late in their 1-0 extra-time defeat to opponents deprived of a host of star names due to injury.

Back at the start of January, the FA Cup third round saw the introduction of Video Assistant Referee technology to the competition for the first time this season. But it was only deployed in some ties, and that will remain the case in this week’s fifth round matches.

Eight games are playing out across the evenings of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. But only games played at Premier League grounds will use VAR, due to licensing rules.

The FA Cup has used VAR since 2018, when it was first deployed in a trial format. But the competition has never applied to the International Football Association Board (Ifab) for full use across the competition, which would be complicated to install at some Football League and non-league grounds.

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A reminder of tonight’s ball numbers. Four teams are already in the hat for the quarter-finals: Newcastle United, Leicester City, Coventry City and Manchester City. The final four will be decided tonight, after the draw is made.

1 Newcastle United

2 Chelsea or Leeds United

3 Leicester City

4 Liverpool or Southampton

5 Nottingham Forest or Manchester United

6 Wolverhampton Wanderers or Brighton & Hove Albion

7 Coventry City

8 Manchester City

Japan winger Kaoru Mitoma is expected to miss the rest of the season for English club Brighton because of a back injury. Brighton manager Roberto De Zerbi said Tuesday that Mitoma was set to be out for two or three months. “Finished (for) the season,” said De Zerbi, who was speaking ahead of Brighton’s FA Cup match at Wolverhampton tonight.

Brighton have been drawn to play Roma in the Europa League’s round of 16 and are in seventh place in the Premier League as they bid to qualify for European competition for a second straight season.

Mitoma has recently returned from playing in the Asian Cup and has also missed a chunk of the season because of an ankle injury.

“It’s a bad, bad situation,” De Zerbi said.

Gary O’Neil insisted Wolves must learn to handle their hectic fixture list despite it pushing them to the limit.

The manager admits the turnaround to face Brighton in the FA Cup fifth round tonight will stretch his small squad. Wolves beat Sheffield United 1-0 to go eighth in the Premier League on Sunday but O’Neil knows they face a testing turnaround.

He said: “The schedule isn’t great for us, a game on Sunday when we had an FA Cup game on Wednesday wasn’t ideal. It means Brighton get an extra day recovery on us. Going into Saturday’s game against Newcastle, they get an extra day of recovery on us and the group is a small squad.

“It will be tested this week. I’m going to need to be really switched on and I’ve already had good conversations with the medical staff about how to use everyone. In an ideal world, everyone is fine to go 90, 90, 90 but there will be situations to manage through the week to get the best from the group.

“In a short turnaround, a day makes a big difference. Playing Saturday-Tuesday compared to Sunday-Wednesday, the lads would feel an awful lot better by the time Wednesday comes if they are playing Saturday. It doesn’t mean it has to make a big difference on the game. We’ve played games where we’ve had less recovery and looked like the team with the most energy.”

Liverpool will look to keep their faint hopes of a quadruple alive when they host Southampton in the FA Cup fifth round tonight.

Fresh off their dramatic 1-0 win against Chelsea in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final, Jurgen Klopp’s injury-stricken side face a quick turnaround before their latest cup clash against Championship side Southampton.

The Saints, looking to bounce straight back to the Premier League after last year’s relegation, are well-poised for a playoff push after an impressive start to the season.

Russell Martin’s side, though, have lost three of their last four league games, including a disappointing 2-1 defeat at home against relegation-threatened Millwall.

Chelsea take to the pitch for the first time since their defeat at Wembley when they host Leeds United in the FA Cup fifth round tonight.

Mauricio Pochettino’s side lost 1-0 to Liverpool after extra time in the Carabao Cup final and now must seek to put that behind them by progressing in the other domestic cup. Given their poor Premier League form, this competition now looks the Blues’ best route back into Europe for next term.

Leeds, meanwhile, have priorities elsewhere: they are chasing promotion from the Championship back to the top flight and currently sit second in the table, six points behind leaders Leicester.

However, they did beat their divisional rivals at the weekend to close the gap and come into this fixture flying both in terms of confidence and form, with nine straight league wins and 12 unbeaten in all competitions.

Nottingham Forest host Manchester United in the FA Cup fifth round tonight as the visitors look to bounce back from a shock 2-1 defeat to Fulham at Old Trafford.

Erik ten Hag’s men were on a seven-game unbeaten run ahead of last weekend’s clash with the Cottagers but Rasmus Hojlund’s injury – picked up just before the game – dealt a killer blow to United who put in one of their worst performances of the season.

Nottingham Forest’s previous outing saw them also lose following a first half storm from Aston Villa who claimed the contest 4-2. Nuno Espirito Santo will have brushed off the defeat in preparation for this evening’s match.

The last time these sides met at the City Ground – back in December 2023 – Forest came out on top and the manager will be using that previous victory as inspiration for his team.

Eddie Howe had watched the Carabao Cup final with a bittersweet feeling. It could have stemmed from the fact that Newcastle played in it last year, their first final of the 21st century. The more immediate cause to wonder about what might have happened stemmed from this season, from a 1-1 draw and a penalty shootout. Newcastle were seconds from progressing in their quarter-final against Chelsea and instead saw their conquerors go to Wembley.

A couple of days after Howe was a spectator, he found himself one again. A couple of months after the shootout at Stamford Bridge, he was on the sidelines again, powerless as Newcastle beat Blackburn on penalties. “In the normal game I feel involved, I can help, I can shout stuff, but in the shootout you have no control,” he said. “I definitely prefer them as a player.”

Martin Dubravka invoked the cliché they are a lottery, but only after he had disproved it with his excellence. Newcastle took four fine penalties and, despite one meek one, that proved enough. “There was a lot riding on it,” Howe said. “It was a big moment in our season.”

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