FA CUP 09/10: Liverpool held, City, Villa through and round-up

The magic of the FA Cup was difficult to find in the third round as Bolton began life without Gary Megson with a victory over Lincoln, while Aston Villa progressed at the expense of Blackburn.

Everton overcame Carlisle, and Roy Hodgson’s Fulham progressed to the fourth round as they knocked out Swindon.

West Brom were made to work for a victory at Huddersfield, Ipswich won a bad-tempered encounter against nine-man Blackpool, and Leicester left it late to beat Swansea.

The scene appeared well set for an upset at the expense of managerless Bolton at the Reebok Stadium, but the Trotters proved too strong for Lincoln in a 4-0 win.

Bolton sacked former boss Gary Megsonearlier in the week after throwing away the lead in a home draw with Hull City and were under the caretaker management of Steve Wigley and Chris Evans.
But there was no sign of any cup magic as League Two Lincoln were eliminated by an own goal from Moses Swaibu and additional goals from Lee Chung-Yong, Gary Cahill and Mark Davies.

Villa recorded a 3-1 win over top-flight foes Blackburn, who had El-Hadji Diouf sent off in the first half for a lunging challenge on Habib Beye.

Both respective managers, Martin O’Neill and Sam Allardyce, had an eye on their Carling Cup semi-final next week and named changed sides.

And it was home team Villa who earned the psychological advantage ahead of that fixture with goals from Nathan Delfouneso and Carlos Cuellar coming before Nikola Kalinic netted after Diouf’s straight red card.

Villa made sure of their place in the hat as substitute John Carew converted a late penalty.

Top-flight Everton have not had the best of campaigns and last season’s finalists made tough work of seeing off League One side Carlisle at Goodison Park before eventually recording a 3-1 win.

Fulham returned to winning ways following their cruel Premier League defeat at West London rivals Chelsea in their last outing as Bobby Zamora’s excellent run of goalscoring continued in a 1-0 victory over Swindon at Craven Cottage.

Championship title-hopefuls West Brom were made to work all the way against Huddersfield at the Galpharm Stadium, but in-form Graham Dorrans and Chris Wood scored the goals in five second-half minutes to earn a 2-0 success.

Second-tier promotion rivals Leicester and Swansea looked like they were set for a replay but Dany N’Guessan scored in the 89th minute at the Walkers Stadium to earn the home side a 2-1 win.

Roy Keane’s Ipswich defeated Blackpool 2-1 at Bloomfield Road as the home side finished the game with nine men following red cards for Ian Evatt and substitute Rob Edwards after half-time.

The lunchtime kick-off between rivals Bristol City and Cardiff was postponed due to a frozen pitch, while Accrington versus Gillingham, and Brentford against Doncaster also fell victim of the weather.

Difficult conditions at the Riverside Stadium did Middlesbrough and Manchester City no favours, as the snow fell heavily on Teesside, but a solitary strike from Benjani was enough to hand Roberto Mancini a narrow win in his first FA Cup contest.

Portsmouth fell behind at Fratton Park to Championship outfit Coventry, but hit back on the stroke of half-time through Kevin-Prince Boateng to force a replay.

Liverpool were also forced to come from behind to snatch a draw against struggling second tier opposition, with talismanic skipper Steven Gerrard bailing them out in a 1-1 draw at Reading.

Burnley had no such problems at MK Dons, with goals from Graham Alexander and Steven Fletcher seeing them safely past Paul Ince’s League One side 2-1.

Newcastle continue to lead the way in the Championship, while Plymouth struggle at the wrong end of the table, but they proceeded to cancel each other out at Home Park and must try again after playing out a 0-0 stalemate.

York offered hope of an upset for all of two minutes at the Britannia Stadium before Stoke came back to beat the non-league outfit 3-1.

Neil Barrett gave York a surprise 22nd minute lead in a game which had been delayed by half-an-hour due to the visitors’ coach being held up in traffic due to the bad weather conditions.

However, Daniel Parslow’s own goal brought the Potters level on 24 minutes, Ricardo Fuller put the hosts in front 60 seconds later and Matthew Etherington scored in the second half.

Spurs cruised into the fourth round after a convincing 4-0 victory over Peterborough United at White Hart Lane as Niko Kranjcar scored twice.

Croatian ace Kranjcar scored either side of half-time, Jermain Defoe netted on 70 minutes and Robbie Keane converted a last-minute penalty.

Fraizer Campbell scored a second-half brace as Sunderland overcame Conference side Barrow 3-0 at the Stadium of Light.

Steed Malbranque set the Black Cats on their way to the fourth round with a 17th minute opener before Campbell netted twice in the space of six minutes after the interval.

Charles N’Zogbia came off the bench to inspire Wigan to a 4-1 success over fellow Premier League strugglers Hull City at the DW Stadium.