FA CUP 3RD ROUND PREVIEW
I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it. I’m about to lose control, and I think I like it. I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it And I know, I know, I know, I know I know I want to watch all the games! Live FA Cup games on TV are shown through a shared coverage agreement between BBC and ITV in the UK.
Where else are you getting The Pointer Sisters lyrics being cannibalised to start a football preview? Nowhere else, that’s where! This weekend is the FA Cup 3rd Round weekend, and third round weekend contains third round Saturday which might well be the best day in the English football calendar. A day to shut out the outside world and watch as much football as possible, or head to the pub with friends and watch games in an excitable atmosphere as news of upsets filters in from grounds all over the land.
Our FA Cup 3rd Round 2023 preview is brought to you in partnership with EPL Index, and Dave Hendrick – host of the Two Footed Podcast, offering FREE podcasts to football fans.
The FA Cup has obviously lost some of its luster with the Champions League stealing so much focus, but it’s a wonderful competition with amazing history and needs to be embraced and protected. Let’s take a look at two games taking place this weekend that give us just a hint at what the competition is all about. Just two, because the 3pm kick-offs are best enjoyed while flicking between them.
FA Cup 3rd Round | Tottenham Hotspur vs Portsmouth
Saturday 7January | 1200 GMT | ITV Live Streaming
The Harry Redknapp/Peter Crouch/Jermaine Defoe/Nico Kranjcar/Sol Campbell/Darren Anderton/Pedro Mendes/Kevin Prince-Boateng/Teddy Sheringham derby.
Two clubs with plenty of shared history, 15 players have represented both sides in the Premier League and while they have gone in very different directions in recent years that shared history of players and managers is worth remembering on third round Saturday, even if it’s just for the purposes of fondly remembering Harry Redknapp seemingly signing Kranjcar in every single transfer for about four years while hanging out the window of his career telling Sky Sports was a “triffic” player the Croatian is.
It’s a shame this tie isn’t being played at Fratton Park because it’s always a bit more interesting when Premier League clubs have to travel to lower league grounds and deal with lower league standard facilities. Fratton Park is a great old ground and quite an intimidating place to go as a visiting team. You have to cross on to Portsea Island and the journey to the stadium can be a little sketchy if the visitors choose to make it so.
Spurs are not in great form at the moment but they did bounce back from a few poor performances with an excellent showing against Crystal Palace in midweek. This trophy represents their only real shot at silverware this season, and they are a club desperate for a trophy. They’ve won anything since the 2008 League Cup and given the quality of teams they’ve had since, that is unacceptable. Tottenham, historically, were a great FA Cup club. They have claimed the trophy on no less than eight occasions but not since the manic final in 1991 have they brought the trophy home.
Porstmouth are two time winners of the FA Cup and their triumph in 2008 remains one of the great stories of the modern era. It does, however, come with a cautionary tale attached. Such was the level of spending under Harry Redknapp to achieve that triumph that Pompey almost went out of business within 12 months and found themselves relegated to the Championship in 2010. They have since fallen into League 1 and then League 2 before managing to find a way to League 1 where they have flirted with promotion for the last five years. It was a harrowing six to seven years from where their financial troubles began until they were finally sorted out, and even now they aren’t stellar but the clubs future is safe.
They will go into this match with a caretaker manager after Danny Cowley was sacked on January 2nd with the team sitting 12th in the league after a run of nine games without a win. It’s disappointing for the club, and for Cowley because they say 2nd after nine games and looked like a good bet for promotion. To get to this point in the competition they have knocked out Hereford and MK Dons, and with nothing to lose they could potentially have a go at causing a big upset on Saturday morning.
FA Cup 3rd Round | Manchester City vs Chelsea
Sunday 8 January | 1630 GMT | Live Streaming
It’s the marquee clash of the weekend and comes just days after the sides meet at Stamford Bridge in the Premier League.
The game that is often referred to as El Plastico because of the nature of these two clubs rise to prominence and the growth of their fans off the back of their success is actually one of the less hostile rivalries within English football’s Big Six. Games against the true big three of English football, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal mean more to the fanbases as those clubs are viewed as the establishment, but that’s not to say there haven’t been plenty of notable games between these sides and that the two clubs don’t circle games against each other on the calendar.
City are six time winners of the FA Cup, but surprisingly have only won the competition once under Pep Guardiola. Their triumph in 2011 was really the catalyst for the success that followed, as it was the first trophy won under Abu Dhabi ownership. In truth, it was the first trophy the club had won since their 1976 League Cup success. It had been a long time for City to wait for success. City’s fans lived off tales of Lee, Bell and Summerbee and the fantastic team they had between 1967 and 1974, many were too young to have seen those players but now they have their own generation of heroes. From Yaya Toure, Sergio Aguero, Vincent Kompany and David Silva through the current team with Kevin DeBruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and Bernardo Silva and now the two young stars they hope will fuel their future successes, home grown star Phil Foden and superstar signing Erling Haaland.
Guardiola has instilled a culture of winning at City, one which measures silverware above all else. It seems a safe bet that he will be taking the FA Cup seriously and looking to add a second to his personal collection of medals.
Chelsea are eight time winners, five of which came under the ownership of Roman Abramovich. Before Abramovich, Chelsea had established themselves as an excellent cup team and during the late 1990’s they had developed the winning habit. Abramovich’s arrival amplified everything they did and his demands of success saw them experience their own unprecedented period of success. Chelsea have established themselves as the dominant FA Cup team over the past 20 years, with those five wins alongside four losing appearances in the final. They have been beaten finalists in each of the past three seasons, something that won’t have sat well within a club that has become so used to success. They’d surely like to go one better this season.
Chelsea’s Premier League season has not gone to plan at all and it may well be that Graham Potter decides to focus on rectifying what’s going wrong in the league but he could probably use a confidence boosting win given there are already dissenting voices among the fanbase with regards to his tenure at the club.
No matter where you are, you can use your Liberty Shield VPN to find a way to watching the FA Cup 3rd Round. Don’t have a Liberty Shield VPN? You’re missing out! Click right here to check out what we can offer you, and use the code EPL25 to get a 25% OFF your VPN or VPN Router at check-out.
How to watch FA Cup 3rd Round 2023 match from anywhere…
FA Cup matches for the 2022/23 season will be streamed live between BBC and ITV, as well as their respective apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, Smart TV, Now TV, FireTV etc.
But these streaming services are not available to everyone, for example when you load BBC iPlayer or ITVx in the USA, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, Australia, Dubai, Canada etc. you will get an error message.
BBC iplayer only works in the uk. Sorry, it’s due to rights issues.
This is basically because their streaming services are geoblocked based on the IP address being used to access it. You must be a UK domestic web user to access BT Sport, Sky Sports, Amazon Prime UK, ITV and BBC Sport live tv streaming.
- Get a UK IP address for FA Cup 3rd Round 2023
- If you want to watch on your Windows PC, Mac, FireTV, iPhone, iPad or Android then you can get a UK Proxy or VPN Apps from Liberty Shield, FREE for 48 hours and then from only £8.99 per month.
- Prefer to watch on supported media streaming devices like Now TV, Smart TVs, Apple TV, Xbox, PS4, Roku etc? You’ll need a UK configured VPN Router setup as British, available from only £22.99 with Worldwide Shipping available.
How can I watch ITV Sport FA Cup matches live?
The FA Cup will be broadcast entirely on free-to-air television in 2022 after ITV announced a four-year broadcast deal with the Football Association. ITV has revealed it will screen 20 live matches per season in the world’s oldest football competition from 2021/22 to 2024/25, sharing coverage with the BBC from the opening round through to the final.
ITV will have the first and fourth choices of the second and fourth rounds and the quarter-finals as well as second and third selections for the first, third and fifth rounds. Matches will be screen on terrestrial TV as well as ITV.com and ITV Hub apps on various devices.
How can I watch BBC Sport FA Cup matches live?
With Premier League Pay-Per-View now scrapped, the BBC gets their live action once again through their FA Cup rights. They also offer free FA Cup and Premier League VPN 20/21 highlights, with Match of the Day and Match of the Day 2, available live when screened on the BBC Sport website, and also on catchup with BBC iPlayer.
Furthermore; ITV Sport and BBC Sport aren’t the only geographically-censored streaming services a VPN or Proxy will allow you to access. Other UK services like Sky Sports, Now TV, BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime, BT Sport, All 4 and BritBox are available. Plus with the option to switch to our USA service whenever you like, you can access Hulu, HBO GO, Netflix and Pandora. Essentially you can access international content from virtually anywhere!
