THE BIG DEBATE A grand tradition that’s produced unforgettable drama or an anachronism that worsens and creates more fixture congestion?

Should third and fourth round FA Cup replays be scrapped?

NUNO ESPIRITO SANTO (right) says he will have to cancel Nottingham Forest’s winter break training camp, Thomas Frank says a replay at Wolves was Brentford’s “worse outcome in every respect” and Roy Hodgson thinks Crystal Palace facing Everton again is “the last thing either of us wanted”.

Amid growing anger from Premier League bosses, replays in the third and fourth round are set to be scrapped from next season. But given everything they can mean to smaller clubs, is that the right decision? We asked the MIRROR FOOTBALL team for their views.

MIKE WALTERS

SOME of the greatest football stories ever told have been about FA Cup replays, and the only clubs bleating about them now are the gilded, selfish and scared.

If the joyless stick-in-the-muds had their way, Hereford’s famous giant-killing replay against Newcastle in 1972 would never have happened.

That was half a century ago, but the principle remains – the game is about glory, not about giving players a week off in January and pretending it’s a mid-season ‘break’ when many clubs take their squads off to Dubai or Abu Dhabi. Twelve-hour round trips on a plane? Not what most people would call ‘rest’.

Some of the great Cup ties used to be marathons of two, three, even four replays. The whole drama used to be about who would blink first. So don’t listen to managers of big clubs whining about players’ workloads.

They have bloated squads, with dozens of players desperate to show what they can do in rare appearances for the starting XI – give it to them.

Players prefer playing matches, not training-ground drill sergeants running them into the ground.

Let them play. And if you’re worried about filling your ground for an unbudgeted fixture on a Tuesday night – how about making the tickets a fiver each? Blackpool boss Neil Critchley (right) is dead right. Get on with it.

JOHN CROSS

YOU will not find someone who loves the FA Cup and tradition more than me – and even I think replays should be scrapped.

Third and fourth round ties going straight to extra time and penalties will add new excitement and levels of jeopardy.

And if you look at ties from the fifth round onwards, more are settled in the one-off ties because teams put the strongest side out and go all-out attack.

The argument against scrapping them is the pay day for smaller clubs in terms of shared gate receipts and the TV cash when their games are shown live.

But the broadcasters have become so predictable with their choices they often miss the giantkillings anyway. That is more damaging to the Cup than removing replays.

There is a better conversation to be had to avoid a repeat of this year’s dull third round where every London club was at home and a lack of giant-killing potential.

Should we seed teams? Draw the lower division teams out of the hat first? The truth is that replays will be scrapped next season because of the new-look Champions League format and the FA see the need for a break for the sake of the England team.

It is hard to make scrapping replays part of football’s compromise package between the Premier League and EFL because the money lost to smaller clubs is incalculable. But it’s easy to see the benefits of a proper break.

ANDY DUNN

THE strongest argument for the retention of third and fourth round replays is based largely on tradition – and let’s face it, when it comes to the FA Cup, the Football Association said farewell to tradition a long time ago.

They said farewell to tradition when deciding to play both semifinals at Wembley in order to help pay the mortgage.

They said farewell to tradition when agreeing a TV rights deal that means the third round can start on Thursday – with a ludicrously-scheduled fixture – and end late on Monday night. They said farewell to tradition when folding to television’s demand for a tea-time final.

There is also a financial argument that a small club can earn a lucrative replay at a bigger club’s stadium, but that is a relatively rare occurrence.

The wider discussion needs to be about the football calendar and how, for example, the new Champions League and Europa League formats will impact the schedule.

But in the meanwhile, the replay system in the third round is an anachronism. These Premier League managers moan too much about fixture congestion… but in this case, they are right.