Weekend Review: Last-gasp FA Cup heroics take centre stage after action-packed Cheltenham Festival

The magic of the FA Cup is alive and well, as two of the quarter-finals saved the best moments till the very end with Coventry City (7/2) and Manchester United (3/1) booking semi-final places at Wembley.

Wolves (3/4) hosted the Sky Blues on Saturday lunchtime, kicking off a thrilling weekend of FA Cup action. After a scoreless first half, the game sparked into life when Ellis Simms netted for the visitors in the 53rd minute. It looked like Wolves would avoid a cup upset when two quickfire goals from Rayan Ait-Nouri and Hugo Bueno put the Premier League side in front with two minutes to go.

However, Simms popped up in the 97th minute to equalise before Haji Wright bagged the winner in the 10th minute of added time to send the away fans into jubilant celebrations.

This is the first time that Coventry have made the semi-finals since famously winning the FA Cup as underdogs in 1987, beating Tottenham 3-2 after extra-time.

Coventry will face Manchester United at Wembley in April after the Red Devils overcame bitter rivals Liverpool on Sunday in another pulsating tie. 

United took the lead early on through Scott McTominay, but two goals before halftime from Alexis Mac Allister and Mohamed Salah gave Liverpool (7/10) the lead at the break. Antony scored only his second goal of the season in all competitions to bring United level and send the match to extra time. 

Harvey Elliott put Liverpool back in front before an injury-time goals from Marcus Rashford and Amad Diallo sent the Stretford End into raptures. 

Elsewhere in the FA Cup, Manchester City (1/4) ground out a routine 2-0 win at home to Newcastle United (10/1), while Chelsea (2/5) and Axel Disasi’s blushes were spared thanks to injury-time goals from Carney Chukwuemeka and Noni Madueke were enough to down Championship high-flyers Leicester City (5/1) 4-2 at Stamford Bridge. 

Betfred’s Alan Firkins said: “Magnificent FA Cup thrills and spills – sensational last-gasp giant-killing from Coventry at Wolves, and that pulsating Manchester United and Liverpool scrap at Old Trafford. 

“Brilliant results for us, a 90-minute draw in Manchester and, of course, that fantastic, well-deserved victory for Mark Robbins’ Sky Blues, 1987 FA Cup winners and now to face United in one of the semi-finals.

“Erik ten Hag’s troops eventually edged a seven-goal thriller against their bitter rivals deep into extra time, reminding the Old Trafford faithful of the good old days under Fergie. No Quad of sorts for Jurgen, but two huge targets remain.”

Bet365’s Steve Freeth added: “We may have only won on one of the four quarter-finals, but we finally managed to get the Liverpool quadruple beat, having built up monster liabilities on Klopp winning all four trophies in his farewell season. 

“We were fearing the worst, with Liverpool trading at 1/25 to qualify at Old Trafford, but Amad’s late winner had us breathing a huge sigh of relief, having been 1500/1 earlier in the season. The Anfield side are 6/4 to win just one trophy and 9/2 to finish with three.

“Our only winner was at the Etihad where Erling Haaland was kept off the scoresheet and even failed to land a shot on target as Manchester City registered a routine 2-0 win over Newcastle with the other three games being littered with goals.”

In the Premier League, there were two key clashes at the bottom, as Luton Town hosted Nottingham Forest and Brentford (6/5) travelled to Turf Moor to face Burnley. 

An early penalty and a Sergio Reguilon red card gave Burnley (2/1) the upper hand. David Datro Fofana doubled the hosts’ lead after the break before Kristoffer Ajer set up a grandstand finish, but Burnley held on to claim their first win since the beginning of December. 

In Bedfordshire, Luke Berry scored his maiden Premier League goal to rescue a point for Luton Town (17/10) in the other relegation six-pointer. Nottingham Forest (8/5) had taken the lead through Chris Wood in the first half. Berry then popped up a minute from time to sweep home a Reece Burke knockdown to snatch a point for the Hatters. 

At the top end of the table, Tottenham’s (11/10) 39-game scoring run came to an abrupt end at Craven Cottage as a Rodrigo Muniz-inspired Fulham (9/4) ran out 3-0 winners. 

Spurs were not made to pay for their slip-up as fellow top-four hopefuls Aston Villa (9/5) only managed to scrape a 1-1 draw away at West Ham United (7/5) thanks to Nicolo Zaniolo, in a game mired by VAR controversy. 

Freeth commented: “We had Fulham to thank in the Premier League, not only winning the game, but stopping Tottenham scoring as bet builders tumbled and draws at Luton and West Ham, plus a win for Burnley gave us a nice set of results in the top flight.”

Francisco Cano, head of trading at LiveScore Group, remarked: “We had very good results on the FA Cup with a great overall margin. The best result of the week, however, was the game between Fulham and Tottenham, which was then followed by City’s 2-0 home victory over Newcastle in the cup.”

On the continent, results mostly went the way of the punters as there were wins in Germany for league leaders Bayer Leverkusen (1/2) and chasers Bayern Munich (1/7). In Spain, Barcelona (9/4) won the crunch match of the weekend against Atletico Madrid (5/4), and Real Madrid (1/2) swept aside Osasuna 4-2. In Ligue 1, PSG (2/5) smashed Montpellier 6-2, with Kylian Mbappe netting a hat-trick. 

The only reprieve for the bookies came in Italy as Juventus (1/2) were held by Genoa (6/1) and Inter Milan (1/2) dropped points at home to Napoli (5/1). 

Freeth commented: “4-2 and 5-2 wins for Real Madrid and Bayern Munich speak for themselves as did the 3-2 victory for Bayer Leverkusen and PSG’s 6-2 hammering of Montpellier. Other high scoring favourites like Borussia Dortmund (3-1) and Lazio (3-2) also stung, but we had a considerable result in Turin with 1/2 Juventus drawing 0-0 and 8/15 Inter’s draw with Napoli also helped in Serie A.”

The weekend’s footballing action was preceded by the Cheltenham Festival, which saw the 100^th running of the Gold Cup in a week full of wins for favourites and some big pain points for the punters.

The biggest shock of the festival came on Wednesday when the heavily backed 2/9 favourite El Fabiolo pulled up following a mistake at the fifth fence of the Champion Chase. This mishap resulted in the race being blown wide open Rachel Blackmore’s victory atop Captain Guinness (17/2).

The other positive result for the bookies came in the Ryanair Chase, as Protektorat (17/2) beat the well-supported 5/2 favourite Envoi Allen.

These results helped balance out a dreadful opening day of the festival for the bookies, in which they took heavy back-to-back losses. Willie Mullins-trained State Man took Champion Hurdle at odds of 2/5 following the withdrawal of heavy ante-post favourite Constitution Hill while Lossiemouth (8/13) comfortably took the Mares’ Hurdle. 

On the Gold Cup’s 100th anniversary, another one of Mullins’ horses came out on top, with 2023 winner Galopin Des Champs joining an elite list to win the Gold Cup twice. Jockey Paul Townend also equalled the record for the number of Gold Cup wins: four, drawing level with Pat Taaffe. 

What’s more, Mullins celebrated his 100^th winner of the Cheltenham Festival – the first trainer to reach this milestone – thanks to his son Patrick aboard Jasmin De Vaux in the Champion Bumper.

On the Cheltenham action Kindred Group’s Ali Gill said: “After a rough opening day as the Willie Mullins and the Irish express, as is standard in recent editions of the Festival, rolled on, overall the four days just about went our way as we managed a healthy margin. 

“The turning point of the festival was undoubtedly El Fabiolo making a mess of the fifth jump and pulling up in the Champion Chase on Wednesday, in what was an enormous swing given the amount of multis that had rolled onto him. 

“Our two worst results of the week came back-to-back on Tuesday, as State Man won the Champion Hurdle and Lossiemouth took the Mares Hurdle, but things turned from there. Protektorat beating the favourite Envoi Allen in the Ryanair Chase came in as our best result of the week.”

Firkins added: “The Cheltenham Festival attracted some debate about attendances, costs, the race programme and muddy car park queues – but the contests on-track were absolutely stellar, as always.

“Willie Mullins clocked up his century of Festival winners, and though punters had lots to cheer all week we didn’t do too badly at all in the final analysis. Massive turning point was the lacklustre showing of red-hot favourite El Fabiolo in the Champion Chase, saving the industry seven-figure sums when sadly pulling up, given the number of multiples and huge singles he was involved in. A bit of an Annie Power moment that spun the week on its head.”

Bet365 had boosted State Man to evens, which Freeth said was the firm’s biggest losing race of the week.

He concluded: “Our biggest losing race was the Champion Hurdle as a super boosted State Man at evens did the business for punters, as did a number of super boosts at Cheltenham.

“El Fabiolo was a great result for us multiples-wise, but it was a stinker for singles with a very well backed Captain Guinness winning on Wednesday. Our best result of the festival was in the Ryanair with Protektorat getting the better of Envoi Allen.”