Brighton beat Derby to reach FA Cup quarters
brighton — Brighton reached the quarterfinals of the FA Cup for the second year in a row after holding on for a 2-1 win over second-tier Derby on Saturday.
Brighton looked to be in complete control after taking a 2-0 lead at halftime, with Anthony Knockaert and Jurgen Locadia scoring for the Premier League side. But Derby threatened to make a comeback after veteran left back Ashley Cole — a seventime FA Cup winner with Arsenal and Chelsea — scored his first goal in the competition in the 81st.
That made for a nervy last 10 minutes for the hosts, but Harry Wilson and Fikayo Tomori both shot wide for Derby to scupper any hopes of a comeback.
Knockaert opened the scoring in the 33rd minute by meeting a low cross in the area and sweeping a shot inside the near post, before Locadia doubled the lead on the stroke of halftime by firing in from close range after Yves Bissouma’s effort had hit the post.
Cole responded with his first goal in English football in six years after
Florian Jozefzoon went down under a challenge from Bernardo and the ball was cleared into the path of the former England defender. While his teammates appealed for a penalty, Cole calmly headed home.
The 38-year-old Cole signed with Derby in January after leaving the Los Angeles Galaxy. The Championship side is managed by Cole’s former Chelsea teammate, Frank Lampard, and was looking for another upset after knocking Manchester United out of the League Cup and beating Southampton in the FA Cup’s third round — both times on penalties.
Championship side Millwall also advanced after Murray Wallace’s early goal was enough to secure a 1-0 win over League One struggler AFC Wimbledon.
Wallace headed in a cross from Ryan Leonard in the fifth minute and the hosts had a number of second-half chances to add to the lead, but couldn’t find a way past Wimbledon goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale for a second time.
It’s the second time in three years the London club reaches the quarterfinals.
Watford manager Javi Gracia is not getting swept away by their run to the FA Cup quarterfinals, saying it is too early to rank them among the favourites to lift the trophy at Wembley in May.
Watford became the first team to book a spot in the last eight with a hard-fought 1-0 win over secondtier Queens Park Rangers on Friday, keeping a third consecutive clean sheet in the competition.
“I think to speak about what we can do in the future is a little lack of respect for the teams we are going to play against,” Gracia told reporters. “Because today, we felt that playing against QPR we have suffered a lot.
“The game we play in the future will be very demanding, I’m sure of that, playing against a Premier League team or Championship team.”
With 13 top flight sides already out, Watford will look to improve on their FA Cup semifinal run in 2016. The Hornets have never won a major trophy, losing their only FA Cup final to Everton in 1984, but Gracia wants his players to just concentrate on the next game.
“To do something special this season, the only thing we have to do is keep working the same way we are doing and be focused on the next game,” the Spaniard added.
“I don’t like to speak about the future. I think football is (the) present. In this case, we are going to play next Friday against Cardiff and we now focus on the Premier League.”
Watford, eighth on 37 points from 26 games, visit fourth-bottom Cardiff City who are a point above the drop zone. —