Key events
Some pre-match thoughts from Charles Antaki via email: “Look, Arsenal fans don’t want much here – a relaxed, happy cup-tie day, with the club doing slightly patronising old-school honours to the home team, then a couple of early goals from elegant open play, another one early in the second half, perhaps allow the home team a screamer from the halfway line to regenerate interest, finish off 1-5. A sporting game throughout, handshakes and claps on the back at the end, and everyone goes home tired but happy. As I say, it’s not much to ask.”
Captains Louis Reed and Gabriel Jesus lead the teams out. Here we go.
Here’s how things are looking at the One Call stadium. Kick-off is minutes away.
Arsenal: They’re the team people love to hate at the moment. The reliance on set pieces, the time-wasting, the foul-buying – things you’d associate more with Cup underdogs than the Premier League leaders. They certainly got under Fabian Hürzeler’s skin in midweek.
But Mikel Arteta knows what he’s doing and his approach has been hugely successful so far this season. But how will the Mansfield fans react to any dark arts today? David Hytner has been asking exactly that:
double quotation mark There is something else at play, a narrative that picked up further steam as Arsenal won at Brighton on Wednesday. The club have a target on their back, partly because of their dominance in every competition thus far, partly because of how they have achieved it. Everyone seems to be firing at it.
Mansfield have not been as far as the fifth round for 51 years, when they were beaten by Carlisle. Their record FA Cup run was in 1969 when they reached the quarter-finals, losing to Leicester. The 3-0 defeat of Bobby Moore’s West Ham in the fifth round that year is Mansfield’s proudest moment.
Mansfield’s goal-filled FA Cup journey this season (so far):
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First round: 3-2 v Harrogate (h)
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Second round: 2-2 (3-1 pens) v Accrington (a)
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Third round: 4-3 v Sheffield Utd (a)
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Fourth round: 2-1 v Burnley (a)
“Arsenal are slightly technically better than us,” Clough smiles as he speaks to TNT Sports before kick-off. “We’ll try and play our normal game. When we can, we get the ball down and play. It’s difficult on a surface like this …”
The Field Mill pitch is looking patchy. We could do with some rain.
Mansfield: Manager Nigel Clough, of course the son of Brian (who never won this trophy), has been speaking to Peter Lansley this week about his dad, his ‘therapet’ dog Bobbie and taking on the Premier League leaders today:
double quotation mark We can watch Arsenal for their last 10 games. It would just frighten the life out of us. We’ll do some rudimentary work on corners. We know roughly how they’re going to come in, whatever their personnel. But if top Premier League teams can’t deal with them, I don’t know how a bottom-half League One side is meant to. I don’t want the players worrying unduly. There’s only one ball coming in at any one time. Deal with it.
Team news: Dowman starts for Arsenal
First things first, let’s bring you the starting lineups from Field Mill.
Mansfield (3-4-1-2): L Roberts; Knoyle, Oshilaja, Blake-Tracey; Akins, Abbott, Reed, McLaughlin; Russell; T Roberts, Oates.
Mikel Arteta has named as many as six forwards in his XI and I’m not sure we’re going to work out the formation until the game starts. I’ll try anyway:
Arsenal (4-3-3): Arrizabalaga; Salmon, Nørgaard, Mosquera, Calafiori; Dowman, Havertz, Trossard; Madueke, Jesus, Martinelli
There are first senior starts for 16-year-olds Marli Salmon and Max Dowman.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to Saturday’s early kick-off in the fifth round of the FA Cup – and what an intriguing tie it is. For Arsenal, the quadruple is on, even if the slightest mis-hap makes you feel like it’ll all fall apart. Could today be that day? Defeat at third-tier Mansfield would surely be the greatest FA Cup shock since, well, January.
Arsenal visit the One Call Stadium, AKA Field Mill, having already knocked out two lower-league teams this season in Portsmouth and Wigan. Let’s hope, for the neutrals (and my enthusiasm), Mansfield don’t concede four in the first half an hour like Wigan did in the last round. They say the pitch is a great leveller but with Arsenal’s aerial game, who knows, it could even work to their advantage.
Mansfield (16th in League One) don’t quite have the Cup pedigree of Portsmouth or Wigan. They are bidding to reach the quarters for the first time since 1969, when their manager Nigel Clough was tottering around as his dad managed Derby.
Kick-off is at 12.15pm (GMT). Feel free to get in touch with your favourite Cup memories, at Mansfield or otherwise, via email. This should be fun.
