Top ten: Liverpool’s unwanted records as blue is colour at Wembley again

From Liverpool’s 4-0 defeat by Manchester City continuing a sequence of landmark losses, to Chelsea and City continuing their Wembley dominance over the past ten seasons, here’s what caught my eye over the weekend.

1) Liverpool’s unwanted quadruple

Arsenal’s hopes of a clean sweep are over but Liverpool have stepped in to keep the concept of a quadruple alive. This one, however, is unwanted. Arne Slot’s team have recorded landmark losses in all four of their main trophy pursuits this season.

Deep breath. In this campaign Liverpool have suffered their joint heaviest defeat in Europe since 1966, home or away, by going down 4-1 at home to PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League; and their 3-0 home loss to Crystal Palace was effectively their joint biggest League Cup defeat since the competition began in 1960 (excluding when a team of youngsters lost 5-0 away to Aston Villa in 2019 while the senior squad was away at the Club World Cup).

The third leg of this quadruple was Liverpool’s 3-0 reverse at Anfield against Nottingham Forest, which was their joint largest home league defeat since 1964. Now, to complete the set, is the 4-0 collapse away to Manchester City at the weekend, which was their biggest FA Cup defeat since 1946.

2) Yet again, blue is the Wembley colour

Familiar shades of blue will colour Wembley later this month: Manchester City and Chelsea will have filled as many as 40 per cent of the FA Cup semi-final slots in the past ten seasons. Their combined 16 semi-final appearances in that period exceeds their 14 semi-finals over 60 seasons from 1928 to 1993, flanking the Second World War.

City thrashed Liverpool to take their season’s FA Cup tally to 19 goals, the joint most by any team in their first four FA Cup games of a campaign since 1969. Five hours later Chelsea had beaten that, with 20 from four. The west London club, in fact, are the first since Preston North End in 1887-88 (before the Football League was formed) to score at least four times in each of their first four FA Cup matches of a season.

City and Chelsea seem to be amusing themselves by setting cryptic targets when facing inferior opposition. In FA Cup games this season Chelsea have scored as many goals as there are letters in “Chelsea” (seven against Port Vale) and Manchester City have matched the number of letters in “Manchester” (ten against Exeter City).

3) City blast rivals away

As humans orbit the Moon and travel farther from Earth than ever before, here are a few more examples of the Blue Moon club reaching new frontiers in the FA Cup. The longest run of home wins in a competition that launched in 1871 just happens to be a present sequence: Manchester City’s 18 unbroken. And the longest run of away wins? Also an active sequence, also City. It’s not even close: they have won their past 16 away, with the next best ever achieved a mere seven. It’s just as well for City’s rivals that their record at neutral Wembley is far from perfect.

Erling Haaland’s treble against Liverpool made it four seasons in a row that City players have recorded at least one hat-trick in the FA Cup: James McAtee did so last term, Haaland the previous campaign, and Haaland and Riyad Mahrez the season before that. The last to perform this feat were Derby County from 1895-96 to 1898-99.

4) Youthful Tonda is a wonder

Southampton’s Tonda Eckert might have thought his only hope of beating Arsenal was to hang on for penalties: instead he oversaw a victory within 90 minutes to become the first manager to reach the FA Cup semi-finals having been born after penalty shootouts were introduced in the competition.

The German, 33, is the youngest in the last four since Manchester United’s Wilf McGuinness, 32, in 1970. Stan Cullis, 12 days older than McGuinness when leading Wolverhampton Wanderers in the 1949 semi-finals, is the only other manager younger than Eckert. Shootouts settled drawn replays from 1991.

5) Non-League best thrive at higher level

Some 51 of the 113 teams promoted to the top flight since 1987 have headed straight back down a year later (excluding last summer’s intake, whose fate is not yet decided). That is the period during which automatic promotion and relegation has been operating between the Football League and non-League. If the same relegation ratio applied as to the top flight, then 27 of the 59 clubs promoted to the League since 1987 would have suffered an immediate demotion. How many have actually gone straight back down? Zero. Newly promoted Oldham Athletic and Barnet sit in the top half of League Two. How long until two promotion places in the National League becomes three?

6) Seven up, seven down

Chelsea, in beating Port Vale, became the first top-flight team to score seven goals on Easter weekend (Friday to Monday) since 1963. Vale are the first league team ever to concede seven goals in the FA Cup having kept clean sheets in their previous four games in the competition that season.

7) English woe

Englishmen made a “net contribution” of just one FA Cup goal over the weekend: only two of the 18 goals were scored by English players, including a penalty, and one of those was cancelled out by an English own goal (Port Vale’s Jordan Gabriel).

8) Hatters’ mad route to play Hatters

Next weekend, in the EFL Trophy final, Luton Town will become the first club to play an English domestic cup final having been knocked out earlier in the tournament (they lost to Swindon Town, who were then disqualified for fielding two ineligible players); and they will also be in the first final featuring two English league clubs with the same nickname, joining the Hatters of Stockport County (excluding monikers that simply describe shirt colour, such as the Blues).

9) Sounds familiar

Fifty years ago, in 1976, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Burnley were bound for relegation from the top flight, Manchester City had just won the League Cup and second-tier Southampton were in the FA Cup semi-finals; the same applies now.

10) Wednesday breaking even

Over Sheffield Wednesday’s past 46 league games — the equivalent of a full season — they have gained 18 points and been deducted 18 points.

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