BC26 Third Round Results

The highest-ranked team in the Cup continue as favourites to take the title with a comfortable win over League One’s Jaysokker. A brace from Igor Thiago and a goal from young Nico O’Reilly helped the rookies to thrash the Season 8 Runners-up, but it was a season-best (and best since Feb 2024) from Jarrod Bowen that stole the show. Three assists and a SoT (that hit the woodwork) in a 4-0 win over Wolves boosted the Boys (also Neverleusen & GoFYS) and sent them straight into the Last 8.

Last week we highlighted how games are won and lost not just on the pitch, but in the backrooms and the scouting offices too. We could do a whole article on the player transactions enacted by these two very active and very smart managers. This 3rd Round fixture became a real chess match with both Cup and League campaigns on the line.

The eventual victors, Mighty Fine, had replaced Emi Martinez (8 FPts this week) with Donnarumma (10); Neco Williams (16) for Fofana (-1) and picked up Reece James – who was signed by Gloopy as a free agent and dropped 26 hours later! James replaced Cucurella, who would’ve scored -½. Gloopy brought in Beto (8½), O’Reilly (12) to accompany Salah (11½) and also brought back Alderete (8½) after 7 weeks away. In the end, the game wasn’t won by goals, but by three assists from across the field (Mitchell, Fernandes and Wirtz) and a huge goalkeeper differential (10 FPts vs -1).

Unlike the previous match preview, we were wrong about the players we highlighted. Saliba and Timber had a disaster against Bournemouth, there was very little difference between DCL & Lammens and Mac Allister had a very quiet 22 mins against Fulham.

What actually happened that was two good performances from Merseysiders VvD (8½) and KDH (11) dragged the League One side into their first Cup Quarter-Final despite not being able to field more than 8 players!

It always leaves a bad taste in the mouth of those KO’d by underperforming teams, but at least in this example the team that could only field eight players did make transfers and set their line-up ahead of the Cup game (albeit forgetting their subs). The frustrating element of this loss was that Goleta couldn’t get Mateta (15 FPts) off the bench; he was sub #4 behind Hutchinson that came on with just +2. Hotspur lost here by 4 matchpoints, and lost their league game by just half a point!

As if to spite yours truly, both SWP & HLAB dropped players that I highlighted last week (but for very good reasons). SWP dropped Diallo (not favoured by Carrick) and HLAB ditched Kudus (18mins, 1FPt).

Instead we can focus on Nico O’Reilly who has returned double-figures for the third time in three weeks. His goal opened the scoring against Chelsea in the second half and took the Cup tie away from Hung LAB. The PL outfit also scored through a Gyökeres penalty, but he finished the gameweek with only 5½.

In the end, it was probably Liverpool’s clean sheet home to Fulham that concreted SWP’s progression to a fourth Cup QF – VvD’s 8½ and Mamardashvili’s 11 completely eclipsed HungLAB’s topscorer Konate (7½), and SWP continue their attempt to improve on 2016’s Final disappointment.

After watching their sister team KO’d by Borussia Teeth in the last round, Beyer Neverleusen get revenge by ending Borussia Teeth’s cup run. But they did so in a slightly unusual manner…

Match E3 ended in a 0-0 draw, but despite not finding the back of the net, Neverleusen continue their winning streak with a pretty powerful 74 matchpoints. Amazingly, they could have scored 35 less points and still won this tie. Even if Borussia had prepared subs to replace the absences of Tete and Saka, they only had another four points available.

However, with an impressive haul of 6 assists, 13 Key Passes and 17 Interceptions, the Third Round turned out to be a cakewalk for Neverleusen, and Borussia Teeth fail to reach the Cup Quarter-Finals for the 13th time.

Bigo1 have been dominating the matches against Team Zizou all season and could whitewash them if they win again in GW38. It seems a little unfortunate for Team Zee, given that they have outscored Bigo1 16 out of 32 times this season. It’s all down to how the fixtures fall.

That said, the Cup bracket brought these two together on Gameweek 32, a weekend when Zizou outperformed the promotion-chasing Bigo1. How did Zizou outmuscle the two-time Best-ish winners? Well it wasn’t on Goals scored, Shots-on-Target, Assists or saves. It certainly wasn’t on Minutes Played; Zizou were on the field for 134 fewer minutes – that’s like having a player-and-a-half less. Unfortunately this week, it looks like the four yellow cards that Bigo1 picked up were critical in their downfall. Sloppy play? Unfair refereeing? Victims of circumstance? We will never know. But if there’s one thing to be said for the match – Marc Guehi deserves his place in the next round.

Due to the international break and the FA Cup/No Prem weekend, the last BFFA gameweek was three weeks ago. Plenty of time to reset and recalibrate, which was exactly what Smash & Grab needed. It gave them the chance to look at Hermansen & Kadioglu. El Dude Bros have not been inactive either; they put Verbruggen, Rice and Richards back into the starting line-up. This meant that (to the delight of the author) both active ‘keepers were former #1’s for their opponents. Moreover, both scored a way-above-average 11 and matched each other exactly (11 FPts; 90 Mins, 1 Clean Sheet & 4 Saves).

For El Dude Bros, who had beaten Smash 42½-37½ last gameweek (~3 weeks ago) joy was found in Kiernan Dewbury-Hall’s 11 fantasy points. Unfortunately for them, he was outclassed by Casemiro (12). Smash & Grab’s 4-2-4 formation also gave them an advantage, not in the forward line as many would expect, but in defence (although, for what it’s worth, El DB’s forwareds also let them down this weekend). The outcome: the higher-scoring (albeit lower-placed) 2019 Winners go through; the 2022 Winners go out.

Not many people score 65 in the Cup and get knocked out. Then again, not many people go up against a Top Five team and get through. Preliminary Version (note – if this is still the preliminary version then we should all be worried about what the finished version will be like!) made some shrewd moves in the recent transfer window – signing Mitchell and Felipe for 8 + 8½ in time for this matchup. Add that to Marc Guehi’s career-best Fantrax score, and Prelim deserve to go through (fair reward for drafting and sticking with Guehi).

GoFYS certainly made a fight of it. They also made new signings since the knocking AFC Chester out in the last round. Yankuba Minteh came in off the GW31 waiver wire and came close to scoring this week, rattling their Championship opponents. Jarrod Bowen and Igor Thiago did push for a QF place with GoFYS, but were not enough to surpass Marc Guehi & co. (although the pair will probably return for Beedle’s Boys in QF1).

I don’t often use the word “barnburner”, but I used it last week in anticipation of this fixture and I think this was one of the best matchups we’ve had this season.