I’m going to wrap this blog up now. Man Utd v Sheffield United kicks off shortly, and you can follow it here:
Thanks for reading. Bye!
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Final moments here:
Well, Arsenal roll on, and they’re safely through in the competition they’re starting to really enjoy. They weren’t great today, but their quality was the difference, encapsulated by their second goal, which was really easy on the eye. Sunderland did OK, and Steven Fletcher missed a great chance at 1-1, but they’re short of skill, and in the end it was comfortable for the hosts. It could be a long second half of the season for the Black Cats.
Full-time: Arsenal 3-1 Sunderland
Arsenal win their 14th consecutive FA Cup tie, and book their place in the fourth round.
90 min + 3: Nope. Van Aanholt’s kick is saved by Cech. And that’s the whistle!
90 min + 2: Watmore, only the second Premier League footballer to receive a first-class degree, is brought down by Gabriel right on the edge of the box. That should be a yellow card, and it is. He was late. Consolation chance for Sunderland?
90 min + 1: A chance for the debutant, but Pickford was quickly out to block off the angle. Nothing doing from the corner. Ninety seconds to play.
90 min: Graham looks to get on to Yedlin’s long throw, and then holds his head as if he was clonked by an Arsenal header. Nothing given, though.
Three added minutes, and Watmore goes away, but he lacks support. Arsenal wrestle it back, pick Sunderland off on the counter-attack, and Reine-Adelaide is denied by Pickford!
89 min: And everyone missed it! It glanced off an Arsenal head, and it’ll be another corner. It’s cleared.
88 min: Mavrias goes down the left and wins a corner. Five in the box for the visitors.
87 min: One last effort from Sunderland? Not with passes like that: M’Vila’s ball for Yedlin is straight into touch. On the touchline, Allardyce raises a quizzical eyebrow.
86 min: Arsenal are happy to keep the ball here. Not too much urgency to go and get a fourth goal.
84 min: Sunderland clear, but there’s not much happening for them in attack. Watmore is direct and energetic, and Graham is game, but there’s not much finesse there. Lens has done well, though.
83 min: Sunderland look fed up. They’ve been OK today, but there’s a lack of quality. Pickford does well to turn over Giroud’s header from the penalty spot, and that’s a corner.
80 min: Bellerin has so much vim and drive going forward: he’s been superb today. As has Joel Campbell, who’s now being withdrawn for Jeff Reine-Adelaide, the 17-year-old French midfielder on for his debut.
Charalampos Mavrias comes on for Steven Fletcher, too, so both sides have made all three changes.
78 min: Giroud was absolutely bewildered, then, and you can see why: Yedlin just took his legs as he looked to shoot. Hugely obvious penalty, but for some reason Atkinson shook his head. Weird. Graham might have done better, too – he had time, but didn’t quite get the contact he wanted.
77 min: Olivier Giroud is like a hot kettle, because Martin Atkinson refused to give a certain penalty just then. Now Cech saves from Graham! The Sunderland attacker was put through, but Cech came out quickly to block with his legs!
75 min: Another attack down the right, and Bellerin’s pinpoint low cross was turned home by Giroud, who beat a sleeping Yedlin to it. That should be that.
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GOAL! Arsenal 3-1 Sunderland (Giroud 75)
And that should wrap it up.
74 min: Arsène Wenger enjoyed that goal. Maybe his celebrations were tinged with relief, but it was lovely football. Sunderland have to force it now.
72 min: Three players involved for Arsenal: Bellerin exchanged passes with Campbell, continued his run, and crossed perfectly for Ramsey, who slipped his marker and finished accurately from six yards. Outstanding crisp passing, lovely movement off the ball, and an expert finish. Superb!
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GOAL! Arsenal 2-1 Sunderland (Ramsey 72)
What a magnificent goal from Arsenal.
70 min: Chance for Walcott! Gibbs did really well to move forward and cut it back for Walcott in the box, free, but his shot was tame, and straight at Pickford. Disappointing.
69 min: Sunderland attack down the left, and Bellerin is nowhere. Van Aanholt’s ball in looks for Watmore, but Gibbs does well to put him off. It’s a goal kick, but Watmore is baffled: that should have been a corner.
67 min: A slight lull after that flurry of changes. Expect Ramsey to have an influence in these last 22 minutes.
66 min: Now a double change for Arsenal: Ramsey and Arteta on for Iwobi and Chambers, who are slightly unfortunate to be hauled off, because they’ve done well.
Here’s Mike Nichols on Chambers’ best position: “Not right back. Sweet Jesus, not right back. Good wingers have a tendency to vaporize him. Maybe center-half. He got off to a great start last season, but ended up a little overmatched.
“Holding mid would be interesting. They definitely need some more depth in that particular spot with Coquelin out and Flamini losing a step. Again, he’s only 20 – plenty of years to figure out where he needs to be.”
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65 min: Change for Sunderland: Billy Jones on for O’Shea, which might mean a defensive reshuffle.
63 min: Sunderland free kick, and that’s another big chance for Fletcher! M’Vila with the ball in from the left touchline, and it has pace and whip, and Fletcher got free, but he put it over! Two excellent headed chances for the striker, and he can’t make either of them count.
62 min: Oxlade-Chamberlain is called for a foul against M’Vila in the corner flag, and that’s a Sunderland free kick. Oxlade-Chamberlain is really cheesed off, and sarcastically applauds the Sunderland player, but it was a daft foul to concede. Why give the ref the opportunity to make a decision?!
60 min: And now Campbell is denied by Pickford! Great combination between Campbell and Walcott, but Pickford stands tall to block Campbell’s shot! Lovely pass from the Costa Rican, and he followed it into the box, but couldn’t find the finish. Should he have scored? Maybe.
59 min: Now Sunderland hit the bar! It’s all happening. Yedlin goes at Gibbs, dinks over a fabulous cross that Cech can’t come for, but Fletcher smashes his header straight against the crossbar from six yards! The Scot got up so well, but he really should have scored. Massive chance.
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58 min: Oh, so close from Arsenal! They’re really cranking it up, and Oxlade-Chamberlain curls one against the post! He shifted it to his right foot, tried to place it beyond Pickford, and that was so unlucky: flush against the post, and Walcott can’t finish on the follow-up.
Change for Sunderland, and Cattermole is replaced by Yann M’Vila.
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55 min: Bellerin attacks Graham, finds Iwobi, and the Nigerian makes a great forward pass for Campbell, running in behind – but Campbell can’t find the finish! He tried to stab it over the advancing Pickford, but he might have been better going for power: it was a tight angle and Sunderland had defenders back. In the end it was easily cleared, but a superb pass from Iwobi to make the chance in the first place.
Today’s attendance: 59,349. How about that for a third-round cup tie?
53 min: That was a good example of Sunderland’s difficulty in this second half: Cattermole won it back on the edge of his area, but there was no one further up the pitch to release. Arsenal have pushed the visitors back significantly.
51 min: Graham heads it behind for another corner. Sunderland clear the second ball, too, but it keeps coming back: they need to find a way to hold it up front.
50 min: The veteran O’Shea has many strengths, but he looked like an anvil trying to pursue a mountain gazelle just then: Oxlade-Chamberlain was much too quick for him. Arsenal on top at the moment, and they’ve forced another corner.
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48 min: Oh, Koscielny and Oxlade-Chamberlain got in each other’s way! After the initial ball was cleared, Campbell did really well to put his cross in from the byline, but the two Arsenal players left it for each other! After you, Claude.
47 min: Foul by O’Shea on Oxlade-Chamberlain, and this is a good position for Arsenal.
We're back!
46 min: Lens and Cattermole get us under way. Sunderland’s green away kit really is abject, isn’t it? Bring back the early 1990s white Hummel affair, preferably with Vaux returning as the sponsor.
Lots of FA Cup matches being played right now. Follow them here with Nick Miller:
I thought Campbell looked good in that first half, and he took his goal very nicely: he really sensed the opportunity, coming in from the flank and losing van Aanholt, before tucking it away with style. Also, nice to see Alex Iwobi: what a lovely fluid manner he has.
Half-time: Arsenal 1-1 Sunderland
That’s the whistle. A pretty even first 45, although Sunderland will probably be happier. The holders held at the half.
45 min +2: Foul by Fletcher, and Cech is in no hurry to take the kick. We’ll go in at half-time level.
45 min +1: A bit of work for Sunderland still to do to go in at half-time level. Oxlade-Chamberlain momentarily found himself free in the box, but he couldn’t make it count. Arsenal pressing at the end of the half, and that was a good subtle pass from Campbell to get Ox-Cham in.
45 min: John O’Shea takes charge, jumps higher than everyone, and the danger is cleared. Good defending. Three minutes of stoppage time!
44 min: Oxlade-Chamberlain runs away from Cattermole and feeds Gibbs, who had overlapped, but Lens does well to come back and make the tackle. It’s a corner, though.
43 min: Arsenal thought they were in, but Martin Atkinson blows for a foul on Fletcher. A posse of Arsenal players throw their hands up in frustration, but I think it was the right call.
42 min: Giroud, whose hair is, as always, immaculate, wins a corner. It’s blocked by Cattermole, so we’ll try again. Oxlade-Chamberlain has a go from the edge of the box, but it’s blocked again. Doughty Sunderland defending!
40 min: Away from home, it does help when you’ve got pace in your team, doesn’t it? And Lens and Watmore have plenty. They’ve been impressive so far.
38 min: Arsenal are becoming more dominant in possession, and Campbell finds Giroud with a lovely disguised forward pass, but Sunderland are quick to close him down. Now Lens has a chance to break, and there are possibilities here for the visitors, but Lens can’t find a team-mate with a pass.
36 min: Fletcher will be OK, and we’re back. Chambers, playing in a defensive midfield role today, runs at Van Aanholt down the right flank and wins the corner. Chambers wins the header, but can’t get the power, and it’s wide.
Question for Arsenal fans: what’s Chambers’ best position?
35 min: Fletcher is down with a head injury; I think he was caught by a stray elbow from Alex Iwobi. It looked accidental – it certainly wasn’t John Fashanu on Gary Mabbutt – but the game has been stopped.
33 min: It’s a total waste, but then Watmore picks up and heads for goal, running in that fearless, direct, uncomplicated style of his. He wins another corner, and it drops to Cattermole on the edge of the box, but his shot is miles too high. Cattermole, incidentally, has received eight red cards in his career, but he’s probably a better footballer than people give him credit for.
32 min: Nice work from Watmore down the right to win the corner off Gibbs. Chance for Sunderland to cause mischief from the set piece.
31 min: Walcott runs into traffic in midfield but then Gibbs stops Sunderland’s counter-attack with a crunching tackle. The teams have settled into this game now: there’s a decent pace to it.
28 min: Oxlade-Chamberlain has a shot from 20 yards, but it’s wide of the goal. A round of applause from the Arsenal fans nonetheless.
27 min: That’ll make Arsenal feel much better: they’d been off the pace for 25 minutes, but a bit of quality in attack, and they’re level. Good play.
24 min: Iwobi, who has a lovely easy style, released Walcott down the left, and Walcott got the better of Yedlin before cutting it back beautifully for Campbell, who finished really smartly, coming in off the opposite flank. That was missable, but the Costa Rican controlled the finish really nicely. An excellent goal.
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GOAL! Arsenal 1-1 Sunderland (Campbell 26)
That’s more like it! Campbell nets his third Arsenal goal.
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23 min: Arsenal look a bit flat right now. The Sunderland fans, of whom there are many, are making a fair old din. Lens does well again in the box, pushing Gibbs off the ball, but his cross-shot is cut out. Arsenal need to pick it up.
21 min: Just looking at the goal again: Gibbs maybe shouldn’t have gone back to Koscielny, but once he did, Koscielny just needed to clear it. Instead he tried to control, got into a terrible mess, and Lens punished him. Poor from Arsenal, and now it’s started to rain.
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19 min: Iwobi, who’s been impressive so far, looks to get Arsenal back on terms, and wins a corner. It’s played in, and Gabriel clashed with Toivonen. Gabriel looks hurt, and we’ll take a pause.
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18 min: Well, that was a complete farce from Arsenal. Watmore looked to dribble in a central area and was dispossessed, but then Gibbs played it back to Koscielny rather than going forward. Koscielny perhaps wasn’t expecting it, and got his feet rather mixed up, and Lens was on to it quickly, tackling Koscielny cleanly and then fizzing a shot past Cech from 18 yards. An excellent finish, but the defending was dreadful. Game on!
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GOAL! Arsenal 0-1 Sunderland (Lens 17)
Ooh!
15 min: It’s not quite clicking for Arsenal, and Gabriel’s forward pass is straight through to the goalkeeper. Now Sunderland attack, and Van Aanholt gets free down the left, but his cross is horrible.
Not much intensity in these first 15 minutes. “Low-key,” says Matt Jackson on commentary. Quite so.
12 min: Toivonen, broad of beam, tries to play in Fletcher, but his pass is cut out. Sunderland are doing OK here, and they’ve looked to play one or two direct balls out to the left: I guess they feel Graham v Bellerin in the air is a match-up they like.
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10 min: Oh, what a good save from Jordan Pickford! Arsenal cut through the Sunderland defence with precision and pace, and Gibbs, streaking forward, was played in by Giroud’s excellent ball – but Pickford stood up well and palmed over. Good chance for Gibbs, that – he was free in the box. Corner for the Arsenal, but it comes to naught.
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9 min: O’Shea looks long for Fletcher in the left-hand channel, and Sunderland win the throw. They’ve pushed Arsenal back here, but then they cough it up, and Arsenal look to break. Giroud’s ball for Walcott is misplaced, disappointingly.
8 min: Arsenal have been fine so far, but they started like a train against Newcastle last time out, and their opening here has been more measured. Walcott’s shot is blocked as he looked to get in down the left. Sunderland solid in defence.
6 min: Arsenal’s first serious spell of possession, but Giroud’s ambitious shot is blocked. The plan for Sunderland looks to be: sit deep, get men behind the ball, and look to break with the speed of Watmore and Lens. DeAndre Yedlin, on Sunderland’s right flank, is seriously quick, too.
4 min: Lens does well to go through from Watmore’s clever pass, and he looks for goal. The shot is wide, but that’s a good positive start from Sunderland. No alarms for them so far.
3 min: Jordan Pickford belts one miles from the goal kick. Danny Graham is starting on the left, slightly weirdly, and Steven Fletcher is the lone man up front. Sunderland all in green; Arsenal in their characteristic red and white.
And we're off
1 min: Giroud and Iwobi get us under way. The 150th meeting of Arsenal v Sunderland in total, and the ninth in the FA Cup. Let’s hope it’s good!
The players are shaking hands, and the pitch looks like a billiards table.
We’re about five minutes till kickoff. Not long now!
An email! From Charles Antaki:
“No Ospina in the end for Arsenal, in spite of Wenger singing his praises - not on the bench, so perhaps injured or unwell? Few Arsenal supporters will feel particularly devastated. Unless Cech drops the ball at someone’s feet.”
Yeah, Ospina is missing. The club says it’s a “slight groin problem,” but, of course, that could be bullshit.
Stats corner: Arsenal are unbeaten in their last seven against Sunderland, although the visitors did come out on top in their last FA Cup matchup: a 2-0 victory in the fifth round in 2012. Martin O’Neill was the Sunderland manager then, and look at some of the names in Arsenal’s lineup: Vermaelen, Djourou, Alex Song, Gervinho. Gervinho! Crikey, that seems like a long time ago.
Arsenal beat Sunderland in the league in early December, but they didn’t play great, did they? Arsene Wenger was absolutely spewing after Olivier Giroud scored one of the more hilarious own goals you’ll see this season, although his team did enough to come back and win 3-1. In fact, I’d venture that Arsenal, despite being top of the league, haven’t truly hit the heights this season – last week’s tortured 1-0 victory over Newcastle a case in point. Could be a good omen, though: the Wenger’s Gunners have perhaps taken their cue from George Graham’s Gunners, and found a way to win ugly. Somewhere, David Hillier is nodding in appreciation.
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And Barcelona take on Granada in La Liga, plus many, many other matches. Nick Miller is in charge of the clockwatch:
Aston Villa are taking on Wycombe, and only minutes remain. Follow it here:
No Mesut Ozil for Arsenal, but it’s still a strong-looking lineup: Gabriel partners the excellent Laurent Koscielny in central defence, and the similarly excellent Petr Cech keeps his place behind them. Alex Iwobi, the highly rated Nigerian who also happens to be Jay-Jay Okocha’s nephew, starts in an attacking role behind Olivier Giroud, and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, whose performance against Newcastle was feeble in the extreme, gets a start.
Sunderland make changes, and hand a debut to the young local goalkeeper Jordan Pickford. Jeremain Lens starts, as do Duncan Watmore and Danny Graham. Defoe, M’Vila and Borini could make an impact from the bench.
Your teams
Arsenal: Cech, Bellerin, Gabriel, Koscielny, Gibbs, Chambers, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Campbell, Iwobi, Walcott, Giroud. Subs: Arteta, Ramsey, Monreal, Macey, Reine-Adelaide, Willock, Debuchy.
Sunderland: Pickford, Yedlin, Coates, O’Shea, Van Aanholt, Lens, Toivonen, Cattermole, Watmore, Fletcher, Graham. Subs: Jones, Borini, Defoe, M’Vila, Mannone, Beadling, Mavrias.
Referee: Martin Atkinson (W Yorkshire)
Hello and welcome
Two FA Cup wins in a row might be a coincidence, but three starts to look like an era. Arsenal enter this season’s tournament having won the famous old trophy in 2014 and 2015, and six victories between now and May could make them first team to win three in a row since Blackburn Rovers in 1886. A chance to make history, Arsène! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: first they’ll have to negotiate this third-round tie against Sunderland, a game which on paper looks the pick of the all-Premier League affairs. The sleek, modern Emirates Stadium perhaps doesn’t have the retro glamour of an Edgar Street or a Racecourse Ground, sites of memorable third-round cup ties past, but the quality of football here should suffice, particularly since Arsenal are going great guns in the league.
Sunderland have won the cup twice, in 1937 and 1973, but they haven’t been to a final since 1992, and they’ll need to improve their abject league form to stand any chance. Mind you, Jermain Defoe has started scoring goals, and Sam Allardyce, whose performance has been uneven since taking over from Dick Advocaat, wants to build the team around him.
Kick off’s at 3pm GMT, 10am ET. Join us!
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Tim will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s why Alexis Sanchez is not yet fit to play:
“Everyone is available from last week,” said Wenger, the manager. “Arteta is available and will be selected because he played 45 minutes on Tuesday with the Under-21s. Alexis is a bit short to be in the squad, but is not far. Liverpool will come too soon as well. Maybe for Stoke.”
