[caption id="attachment_69486" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Robbie Keane and Richard Dunne helped put Aston Villa in a 2-0 lead, but home side Arsenal fought back to win the 4th round FA Cup game."]
It has been a good week for Liverpool F.C. On Wednesday they beat Manchester City 3-2 on aggregate to qualify for this season’s League Cup final and on Saturday they beat the other Manchester club United 2-1 to reach the 5th round of the FA Cup. They’ll play against Cardiff at Wembley on Feb. 26, and before that will have a home tie against Brighton in the 5th Round of the FA Cup which will be played on the weekend of Feb. 18/19.
At Anfield on Saturday, United’s Patrice Evra was booed throughout the game by Liverpool supporters who were furious that he had accused their Uruguay international Luis Suarez of racially abusing him in October. Agger put Liverpool ahead, but Park equalised for United before half-time. Suarez, who is serving an eight-game ban, watched from the stands with his young daughter. Meanwhile, a mistake by Evra allowed Liverpool sub Dirk Kuyt sneak in to score the winner 12 minutes from the end.
No love lost either at Loftus Road in London with an increased police presence for the meeting of Queens Park Rangers and Chelsea in the Cup. Rangers fans gave Chelsea captain John Terry a bad time. Terry will be in court this week for allegedly racially abusing Rangers Anton Ferdinand in October. With rumours abounding that the entire QPR team were going to refuse to shake hands with Terry, the English FA announced that they were dropping the traditional “respect” hand shake before the game. Chelsea won 1-0 thanks to suspect penalty that was converted by Juan Mata.
At the Emirates, Robbie Keane provided the cross for his Irish colleague Richard Dunne to give Aston Villa the lead over Arsenal. But Dunne gave away a penalty in the second half as the Gunners came back from two goals down to win 3-2. Goalkeeper Shay Given, who went the wrong way on the two penalties, was the third current Republic international playing for Villa, while Stephen Ireland, who has absented himself in recent years, was also centrally involved.
North of the border, Dubliner Anthony Stokes scored twice as Celtic beat Falkirk 3-1 to qualify for the Scottish League Cup Final where they will meet Kilmarnock on
March 18.
