FA Cup fourth round: Can cup run give faltering Man United hope?

It’s the FA Cup fourth round this weekend and the stakes are high for clubs, players, managers and owners desperate to keep alive their hopes of success this season — such as Manchester United, Tottenham, Marcus Rashford, Ruud van Nistelrooy and, of course, Tom Brady.

Round four is about heavyweight clashes and the remaining minnows aiming to cause an upset against a Premier League giant.

Can Ruben Amorim and Man United avoid an embarrassing Old Trafford exit against Van Nistelrooy’s struggling Leicester City? Who will be left standing after Aston Villa and Spurs meet on Sunday? Can Plymouth Argyle end Liverpool’s hopes of a quadruple in Arne Slot’s first season in charge? And will Brady, Birmingham City minority owner, get Super Bowl weekend off to a winning start by seeing his EFL League One team shock Newcastle United?

With all fourth-round ties live on ESPN+, here are the storylines and potential shocks to look out for.

The FA Cup holders began the defence of their title with a penalty shootout win away to Arsenal in the third round. They will be strong favourites to beat a Leicester team that has lost eight of 12 games under Van Nistelrooy.

Van Nistelrooy landed the Leicester job last November after a four-game stint as caretaker manager at United following the dismissal of Erik ten Hag. United won three of those four games — two against Leicester — and they will be motivated® to seal a hat trick of home wins against the Foxes this season.

But while former United striker Van Nistelrooy has struggled to inspire a change of fortune at Leicester, winning just three of his twelve games so far, Amorim is also enduring a nightmare run at Old Trafford and United’s sequence of five defeats in their last seven home games in all competitions will give Leicester hope. Many United fans wanted Van Nistelrooy to be handed the job of succeeding Ten Hag permanently, but although his time at Leicester has been miserable so far, don’t rule out a shock Foxes win that deepens United’s gloom.

In normal times, this tie would be little more than a routine away win for Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering City against a lower-league team dreaming of an unlikely upset, but League One side Leyton Orient are chasing promotion from the third tier and are not short on confidence — unlike their faltering opponents.

Sunday’s 5-1 defeat at Arsenal was City’s 11th loss in their past 22 games in all competitions as Guardiola endures his worst-ever run as a manager. A hazardous trip to east London has the potential for another setback for City.

Orient chairman Nigel Travis, a lifelong supporter now based in Boston, Mass., is a former CEO of Dunkin’ Donuts, which offers the potential for plenty of embarrassing headlines awaiting City if they lose on Saturday. Travis has spent the past two years seeking new investment in Orient — a high-profile clash against City in the first meeting of the clubs since May 1966 presents an opportunity for the home side to win big on and off the pitch.

This game might initially look like one of the less exciting ties of the round, but the clash between Premier League bottom club Southampton and EFL Championship high flyers Burnley is actually an important indicator of the increasing gulf between the two divisions.

The two clubs swapped places last season, with Burnley relegated from the top flight and Saints promoted from the Championship via the playoffs. Last season was the first time since 1998 that all three promoted teams — Burnley, Luton Town and Sheffield United — were relegated from the Premier League at the first attempt, and Southampton and Leicester were promoted last season after just one season in the Championship.

In round three, Southampton made easy work of Championship team Swansea City, but they have won just two Premier League games all season. If Ivan Jurić’s team beat Burnley this weekend, it would suggest that the gap between a struggling Premier League team and confident Championship side is getting bigger.

This is a clash of two big clubs hoping for a bright future after recent changes of ownership. But while Newcastle are developing into a Premier League force after being taken over by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in October 2021, Birmingham suffered a shock relegation to League One after being bought by American group Knighthead Capital Management — a collection of investors that includes Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl winner — in July 2023.

After early missteps, including the hiring of Wayne Rooney as manager before his dismissal after just four months of disastrous results, Birmingham are now on the up and on course for promotion as winners of League One. With £15 million summer signing Jay Stansfield topping the club’s scoring charts with 16 goals this season, Birmingham have the firepower and form to pull off an upset.

Newcastle, just three days after facing Arsenal in the second leg of the Carabao Cup semifinals, could be vulnerable to a shock at St. Andrew’s.

When these two teams last met in January 2017, Plymouth secured a third-round replay by holding Liverpool to a 0-0 draw at Anfield, before a Lucas Leiva goal sealed a narrow 1-0 win for Jürgen Klopp’s team in the second game at Home Park.

Plymouth were a League Two side in 2016-17 and have since climbed to the Championship, but they go into the clash against Slot’s Premier League leaders sitting rock bottom of the second tier and under new management, with Miron Muslić replacing Rooney — who, after his dismissal from Birmingham, lost his second job in a calendar year — last month.

On paper, this tie is a mismatch and Liverpool should win comfortably, even if Slot makes changes due to the game being sandwiched between the second leg of the Carabao Cup semifinals against Spurs and next Wednesday’s rescheduled Merseyside derby against Everton at Goodison Park. Plymouth go into the game having collected four points from games against promotion-chasing Sunderland and West Brom, though, so this might just be a tie that catches everybody by surprise.

While this is a clash between two of the biggest and most historic clubs in England — also two teams that are long overdue a trophy — Sunday’s tie at Villa Park is all about Rashford and his likely debut for Aston Villa. Rashford sealed a loan move from Manchester United to Villa after falling out of favour under Amorim at Old Trafford, and the 27-year-old has plenty to prove following a lengthy period of decline at United.

Can he rediscover the magic in a Villa shirt? Rashford has previously scored on his debut for United and England, so doing the same in a big FA Cup tie against Tottenham would be some way to start.

Villa haven’t won a major trophy since the 1996 EFL Cup, while Tottenham’s silverware drought stretches back to a 2008 win in the same competition, so the importance of this season’s FA Cup to both sides is clear.