With the preliminary round done and dusted, it’s time to move into the competition proper.
There were a few one-sided affairs, with Crystal Palace’s third having an 84-16 win over Southampton’s third with white socks, Arsenal home (red socks) beating Manchester United away (black socks) by 83-17 and Liverpool’s home a clear winner against Manchester City’s third on an 82-18 scoreline.
Contrastingly, Crystal Palace’s away needed a replay before beating Arsenal’s third 56-44, following a 50-50 draw. Aston Villa’s away squeezed past Leicester City home (blue short) 51-49 and Burnley’s third beat Southampton’s fourth by the same margin.
Again, we used the Random Number Generator to carry out the draw – the 33 kits that received byes to the first round were numbered 1-33, the winner of the first preliminary round tie number 34 and so on. The pairings were taken by working horizontally, left to right, so the first clash is 57 (West Ham United home (blue shorts/socks)) v 43 (Sheffield United home).
So that leaves the following 32 ties to decide. Voting closes at 7pm GMT on Tuesday, March 17.
Not one of Southampton’s shirts made the cut. As a fan, that’s a little disappointing, but I’m not surprised. This year’s kits are not great, in my humble opinion.
Loved the dark green match ups between burnley and newcastle…brilliant!
Not too surprised the Chelsea home shirt failed to make the cut, though if the FA Cup kit had entered the competition would be already over.