There will be no more FA Cup replays from the fifth round an onwards, with extra time and penalties used to decide the tie when the score ends level.
Why Are There No More FA Cup Replays?
In the early stages of the FA Cup, games would go to a replay if the score ended level after 90 minutes with teams playing the match again usually one week later.
Replays would take place at whichever ground had not been played in the first leg and if they ended all square the match would be decided on extra time and penalties.
However from the fifth round onwards the FA Cup will not have any more replays – with teams instead going straight to extra time and penalties.
Replays at this stage of the competition were scrapped in the 2018/19 season to reduce the length of the FA Cup, with the fixture congestion becoming impossible to handle towards the end of the year.
Next season the Champions League is set to introduce a new, more demanding format, that has brought to question the point in replays at all.
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta was the latest manager to question why replays are still used, suggesting that they should be stopped altogether from next season.
“We will see what happens because with the new format of the Champions League, there will be more games so I don’t know how we are going to fit them in … That (cancelling replays) has to be considered.”
FA Cup Fifth Round Matches
Tuesday 27th February:
- Bournemouth vs Leicester – 19:30
- Blackburn vs Newcastle – 19:45
- Luton vs Manchester City – 20:00
Wednesday 28th February:
- Chelsea vs Leeds – 19:30
- Nottingham Forest vs Manchester United – 19:45
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