Ok, the FA Cup is the one people care about, right? Because otherwise I’m about to look pretty silly.
Whom:
Burnley vs. Milton Keynes Dons
What:
FA Cup, Third Round
Where:
Turf Moor
When:
9:00 AM American Central Standard Time
How to Watch:
As far as I can tell, just ESPN+ here in the states, so you need a subscription
What’s at Stake:
The FA Cup is, for whatever reason (just kidding I know there are some legitimate reasons—history and more teams, right?), the more important of the two English cups. The Third Round is the round of 64, so the opportunity here is to get into the round of 32 later this month. In case you’re wondering (and you should be wondering), yes, the FA Cup comes with a tantalizing prize: the thing we’re all after here—a Europa League berth.
The Odds:
I can’t find ‘em. Spent a good two or three minutes looking, too.
The Opponent:
Sellouts!!!!!! MK Dons is the ghost of Wimbledon F.C., which relocated from its ancestral home to this big ol’ manufactured city of Milton Keynes (really, it’s big: over 200,000 people) in the early 2000’s, to the grand fury of Wimbledon F.C. supporters. What do I mean by manufactured city? The British government designed it in the 60’s to try to pull some population out of London in an effort to relieve overcrowding. What did Wimbledon F.C. fans do about their fury? They formed a new club, AFC Wimbledon, which quickly rose to be right where MK Dons is right now: League One, the third tier.
The Dons are currently 16th in League One, but given games in hand (that’s the phrase I’ve been hearing for when one team has more matches left than another), they should probably be closer to 17th or 18th in the 24-team league, a league in which the bottom four are relegated. In other words, there’s hope for these carpetbaggers receiving some justice (evidently the name of the city comes from the name of one of the old villages on the site, so nothing to hate about the name—it isn’t a person or anything).
Burnley News:
We talked about Alan Pace a bit last week. This week, information emerged about how ALK Capital got a lot of their funding to buy the club through a loan, but it’s unclear to me whether that’s a bad thing. Guess we’ll see whether they put much money through during the transfer window.
Jack Cork should be back today, per the Burnley website. Jóhann Berg Guðmundsson and Matěj Vydra are questionable. Jay Rodriguez, Charlie Taylor, and Dwight McNeil are out, and there’s some speculation that there’ll be others absent because of Covid. I’m guessing the lineup has been posted by the time you read this, so that’s probably a better place to go if you’re looking for a personnel breakdown than this blog post from a guy who wasn’t positive the FA Cup was the important one.
Bertie News:
Nothing. Ugh. But enjoy this old clip of him and a streaker:
