FA Cup round-up: Aké strikes late for City

A late Nathan Aké goal gave Manchester City a late win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium while the other three FA Cup fixtures all ended in draws with replays to follow.

Much has been made of City's inability to score away to Tottenham Hotspur since their move away from White Hart Lane going into this one.

And City, who dominated much of the game, may well have begun believing in the curse themselves during this one.

It looked like the visitors had scored early through Oscar Bobb who was the quickest to react when Guglielmo Vicario palmed away the impressive Phil Foden's shot. But the assistant referee raised their flag and after a VAR check the decision was upheld but it was an incredibly close call.

Kevin De Bruyne came on in the second half and had a superb chance to win the game late on for City. Spurs gave the ball criminally away on the edge of their own area leading to the Belgian being in acres of space inside the Spurs box.

Surprisingly though, De Bruyne fired his effort just wide – the curse held on for a little longer.

But eventually, it was Nathan Aké who broke the deadlock in the 88th minute of the game. A corner from the left wasn't dealt with by Spurs – who were claiming for a foul – with the City defender being in the right place to prod home.

VAR did check the goal but chose not to overturn the decision meaning that Pep Guardiola's side advance to the next round.

It was a deserved victory too with Spurs simply unable to get anything going at the top of the pitch. Tottenham finished the game with just one shot.

xG: Tottenham Hotspur (0.27) 0-1 (2.35) Manchester City

@Getty /

Neither Mauricio Pochettino nor Unai Emery will be particularly happy about adding another fixture to their calendar but there was little to separate the two sides.

Douglas Luiz did have the ball in the net for the visitors early on but the goal was ruled out for a handball in the build-up.

Matty Cash also had a good chance to seal a win late on for Villa but he could only force a fine save out of Djordje Petrovic.

That game wasn't the only goalless draw of the evening: Bristol City and Nottingham Forest have been no strangers to FA Cup replays this season and they'll be able to enjoy another one next time in Nottingham.

And finally, the game between two Championship sides Sheffield Wednesday and Coventry City also ended in a draw although at least there were some goals in this one.

And in fact, probably the best goal of the night was scored by Coventry debutant Victor Torp who had space to fire a rocket of the shot in from 30-odd yards. There was nothing that another debutant – Wednesday's 18-year-old goalkeeper Pierce Charles – could do about that one.

The Owls did fight back late on though when Barry Bannan set up Djeidi Gassama to score his second goal of the season, albeit with a little help from a deflection.

The two will go at it yet again in Coventry for the replay.

3️⃣ replays
1️⃣ late winner

Here are tonight's #EmiratesFACup fourth round results 👇 pic.twitter.com/QBS060RvSe

— Emirates FA Cup (@EmiratesFACup) January 26, 2024