A change within the FA Cup draw course of this 12 months is being introduced in, to permit groups to adequately plan their upcoming video games in a crowded schedule.
It’s a reasonably innocuous alteration, however one which managers is likely to be glad of when the video games come each three or 4 days in February and March as soon as extra.
Normally, the draw for the subsequent spherical takes place as soon as all of the video games are over and performed with – aside from replays – however this 12 months the FA have introduced they’ll draw the fourth and fifth-round ties collectively.
Liverpool are up in opposition to Aston Villa within the third spherical on Friday evening, with a lot of the different ties being performed over the weekend.
And on Monday, 11 January the ultimate fixtures will happen together with the draw.
The fourth spherical draw ought to happen round 7:10pm, reside on the FA Cup Fb web page or on BT Sport 1.
As quickly as that’s performed, the fifth spherical fixtures shall be pulled out too, leaving the Reds to know their path to the quarter-finals…in the event that they overcome Villa, after all.
The fourth-round video games shall be performed the weekend of 23 January, with the fifth spherical throughout the midweek of Wednesday, 10 February.
Aston Villa or Liverpool shall be ball No. 23 within the preliminary draw for the fourth spherical, with new numbers allotted for groups and ties after that spherical’s fixtures are confirmed.
The Reds haven’t received the FA Cup since 2006, coming runners up in 2012. Final 12 months we reached the fifth spherical earlier than dropping to Chelsea.