In this article…
It is always one of the most anticipated weekends of the domestic football calendar as the top two divisions join the oldest club competition in world football.
This is the 144th edition of the FA Cup and therefore there are a lot of trends particular to this competition, and specifically this round, that we can dig into. Whilst results from the 1880 competition might not be relevant to next weekend’s action, if there are useful trends from the last few seasons that can help us get a workable edge, then it is a worthwhile exercise.
We’ll be all over the FA Cup this season, check out our FA Cup Accumulator Tips as well as our Liverpool v Accrington Betting Predictions & Man City v Salford Bet Builder Tips ahead of this weekend’s action.
We also have £270+ in Free Bets available in our Free Bets Article for those looking to set up new betting accounts in the new year, as well as a list of the Best Existing Customer Free Bet Offers.
🥅 Goals
We have taken the last five seasons of third round football as our main sample size. This is what we believe walks the line between relevant modern football and having a deep enough sample size to be able to be interrogated.
Across the 160 third round ties in the sample we can surmise that a match in the FA Cup third round averages 3.04 goals.
This is a higher average goal per game rate than any of the EFL divisions, and higher than any Premier League season bar the 23/24 record breaking season which had 3.28 goals per game. This suggests that there could be some juice in the goals markets in the weekend FA Cup fixtures, but, as always, it is about finding the right spots for those bets.
Related to the goals markets, we also took a look into the “Both Teams to Score” ratios. By our calculations 86 of the 160 ties saw both teams scoring, a ratio of 53.75%, which seems quite low. This is likely due to the number of matches that are between clubs that are a long way apart in the league structure i.e. big quality differences in the sqauds, leading to one-sided matches.
So this is not to say that BTTS is a bad bet, we know that there are goals to be had, but it is again a case of picking your fixtures wisely.
Finally, if you are a correct score gambler there are a couple of interesting tidbits from our research as well. 0-0 is a much less common scoreline in the third round than In regular league play, indeed there were no 0-0s in 2021 or 2023, and there were two in each of 2020 and 2024, with one in 2022, which went to extra time and ended 0-1. It may be worth looking at an over 0.5 goal special in each of the 32 third round ties on this evidence.
Also, if you do like a goals angle in one of the matches, it could be worth going for a high line. There have been a number of big scores in the third round over the last few seasons. Last season featured a 5-2, a 6-2, and a 2-4, there was a 2-4, a 3-3, a 3-4, and a 1-5 the season before as well. A “good, old-fashioned cup tie” or a “ding-dong battle” are phrases that feel rooted in the FA Cup third round and these are the scorelines that feed into that narrative.
⚔️ The Haves vs. the Have-nots
This season’s third round draw has thrown up an unusual number of Premier League vs League Two draws.
League Two teams making it into the third round isn’t a very unusual occurance, on average, just under half of League Two teams are in the hat for the third round every season, and, indeed, there has been at least one Premier League vs League Two tie in the third round every season in the last five years.
However, this season there are more examples than usual, and not only that, the examples are ones of the elite Premier League teams playing at home to the underdogs:
- Liverpool vs Accrington Stanley
- Chelsea vs Morecambe
- Manchester City vs Salford City
- Newcastle United vs Bromley
From our research, this is the highest number of top division vs fourth tier matches in the last years, and it is certainly unusual for all of them to be hosted by the Premier League team. This is great for the revenues of the four smaller teams of course, but what does it mean for betting?
We researched the previous FA Cup 1st v 4th tier ties in the last five years. These came from all rounds, not just the third round.
| Gillingham | 0 | 4 | Sheffield United |
| Newport | 2 | 4 | Man Utd |
| Gillingham | 0 | 1 | Leicester |
| Aston Villa | 1 | 2 | Stevenage |
| Walsall | 0 | 1 | Leicester |
| Southampton | 1 | 2 | Grimsby |
| Brighton | 5 | 0 | Grimsby |
| Swindon | 1 | 4 | Man City |
| Port Vale | 1 | 4 | Brentford |
| Crystal Palace | 2 | 0 | Hartlepool |
| Chelsea | 4 | 0 | Morecambe |
| Crawley | 3 | 0 | Leeds |
| Newport | 1 | 1 | Brighton |
| Cheltenham | 1 | 3 | Man City |
| Man City | 4 | 1 | Port Vale |
As one would expect, ten out of the fifteen ties were won by the Premier League club, but perhaps 67% is a lower ratio than might’ve been expected. There are some heavy defeats here, 9 of the 10 wins by PL clubs covered the (-1) handicap, and six covered the (-2) handicap.
Only six ties were hosted by PL clubs, with Aston Villa and Southampton going down to shock defeats in 2023.
Total goals could be a better angle to look at. The average here is just over 3.5 per game, 11/15 went over 2.5 goals, and 8/15 were over 3.5. 8/15 matches were also BTTS – Yes, a similar ratio to the overall numbers mentioned earlier. This is potentially surprising given that these are relatively extreme quality differentials. However, a few of the underdogs managed at least one goal, often even in heavy defeats.
It is worth mentioning though that perhaps a better comparison when assessing potential bets in the 2025 matches mentioned above is to narrow the sample to just the elite teams.
If we can include Manchester United in that sample, then all five ties featuring a “big 6” club were won, and won well. Manchester City have featured three times and won 4-1 twice and 3-1, a prime example of not backing a “win to nil” market here. Chelsea beat the same team they are playing again in Morecambe 4-0 in 2021, and United won 4-2 at Newport last season.
❌ No Replays
The major change for this year’s competition is that there will be no replays. If the 90 minutes ends in a draw, then extra time will be played, and then penalties will be used to settle the tie on the day.
Whether you are in favour of no replays or perhaps see the ruling as a further diluting down of the grand old competition, it is still perhaps worthwhile considering the impact of no replays to see if there could be an edge for us to use.
In terms of examples that we can use to help us here there isn’t a particularly robust sample size to test against, but the 2022 third round was pre-decided to have no replays either, due to the fixture congestion caused by the winter conditions and also the continued effects of COVID.
In that 2022 third round, eight of the 32 ties went to extra time, though, interestingly only one of the ties went to penalties.
| Year | Draws |
| 2024 | 8 |
| 2023 | 6 |
| 2022 | 8 |
| 2021 | 3 |
| 2020 | 9 |
However, the number of draws wasn’t massively significant when observing it against our sample of the last five seasons.
The first and second round of this season’s FA Cup were the first ever to feature no replays as well. 11 of the 40 first round ties went to extra time, almost exactly the same 25% ratio as the 2022 third round. 7 out of 20 of the second round ties went to extra time, which is a higher 35%.
Overall, there is no definitive answer on the effect of no replays, but early indications are that there look to be more draws, or at least, draws have been on the more frequent side of normal based on the evidence so far.
This is something to take into account in our betting for the third round.
* All odds displayed correctly at the time of publishing *
Written by an Andy verified content writer
18+ please gamble responsibly.
