Sunday 05 April, 2026

THE BACK POST

Tosin Adarabioyo. Chelsea. Centre-back. Playing in a club held together right now by sellotape and FA Cup optimism.

Chelsea went into this weekend having lost four straight games, been knocked out of the Champions League by PSG on aggregate, and watched their captain flirt publicly with Real Madrid. Their season has been collapsing in real time. The FA Cup was the last thing standing between them and nothing.

Tosin Adarabioyo headed Chelsea's fourth goal in a 7-0 quarter-final demolition of Port Vale on Saturday. Clean run to the back post. Malo Gusto's cross from the right, held up perfectly. Tosin in the air, and the ball in the net.

It was not the goal that will get the headlines. That goes to the six different Chelsea scorers, or the 64 seconds it took to open the scoring, or the fact that Port Vale, a League One side, were making their first quarter-final since 1954. Tosin's name will sit fourth on the scoresheet and people will move past it.

But here is what the scoresheet doesn't tell you.

Tosin Adarabioyo is the son of Nigerian parents. Born in London. His full name is Abdul-Nasir Oluwatosin Oluwadoyinsolami Adarabioyo. He remains eligible to represent Nigeria. He chose England — or England chose him first, through the youth system. But his roots sit firmly in the same soil as the Super Eagles.

He has been the stable piece of a Chelsea backline that has been anything but stable this season. While the club's transfer spending, its manager's job security, and its dressing room coherence have all frayed simultaneously, Tosin has been one of the few players not generating noise of the wrong kind. He just plays. Gets on with it. Shows up.

On Saturday, in a match Chelsea needed to win to have any reason to believe in their own season, he was there at the back post. As he tends to be.

The bigger picture is this. Chelsea's only path to silverware this season runs through Wembley. Every other road is closed. The squad knows it. The manager knows it. And in that context, a 7-0 win does not just feel emphatic. It feels like permission to keep going. Tosin contributed to that moment. From Nigerian soil.

That is the story the scoresheet doesn't say out loud.

TWENTY - THREE SHOTS, ONE GOAL

Arsenal. 23 shots. 63% possession. Nine corners. Shea Charles. 2-1.

There was a version of this weekend where Arsenal were heading to Wembley for the second time this season. Top of the Premier League by nine points. Champions League quarter-finalists. FA Cup semi-final in reach.

Instead: a Championship club from the south coast sent them home.

Ross Stewart put Southampton ahead on 34 minutes. Viktor Gyökeres equalised for Arsenal on 68. Then Shea Charles, a substitute, struck into the bottom corner with five minutes left. Peretz, an Israeli goalkeeper on loan from Bayern Munich, who barely had a career six months ago — made six saves. Arsenal had 23 shots. Southampton had eight.

None of that is as simple as it looks.

Arsenal arrived at St Mary's without Saka, Rice, Trossard, and Eze. Arteta started Gabriel, Odegaard, Gyökeres and Saliba on the bench, protection, presumably, for Tuesday's Champions League first leg in Lisbon. Southampton came in on a 14-game unbeaten run. Different momentum. Different urgency. Different relationship with this competition.

And yet. The numbers say Arsenal dominated. The scoreboard says Arsenal went home.

That is the football equivalent of: it doesn't add up. Both things are true. Arsenal controlled the match and lost the match. The better side, by almost every measure on the day, is out. The lesser side is going to Wembley. This is how the cup works. It does not reward the better squad. It rewards the better hour. Southampton's hour arrived in the 85th minute and lasted exactly as long as it needed to.

Arteta's side have now lost the EFL Cup final to Manchester City and the FA Cup quarter-final to a Championship club inside three weeks. Nine points clear at the top of the Premier League, quarter-finalists in Europe. The domestic league picture is dominant. Everything else is slipping through their hands.

Whether that matters depends on what you think the league is worth when the cups are gone.

EIGHT YEARS, ONE CLUB

Erling Haaland scored a hat-trick. Manchester City beat Liverpool 4-0. And that is somehow the least interesting part of the story.

What happened at the Etihad on Saturday is not really about a result. It is about a pattern that has now run for eight consecutive years.

Manchester City have reached the FA Cup semi-final for the eighth season in a row. They just set a new record for consecutive home wins in the competition — 18, surpassing a mark set by Clapham Rovers in 1881. One hundred and forty-five years of FA Cup history, and one club is rewriting it.

Think about what that means structurally. The FA Cup is supposed to be the great leveller. The competition where giant-killings happen. Where Macclesfield beat Crystal Palace in January — which they did, this very season, in the third round. Where Port Vale, a League One side, reached the quarter-finals. Where Southampton, a Championship club, knocked out the Premier League leaders this afternoon.

All of that is true. And at the same time, Manchester City have now made the last four eight times in a row.

Both things exist inside the same competition. That is not a contradiction. That is how modern football works. The upsets are real. The chaos is real. And the structural dominance of the clubs with the largest resources is also real. The cup gives you the story of Port Vale. It also gives you the story of City. These are not in tension. They are the same system at work.

Haaland's hat-trick against Liverpool was his 12th treble for City. For context, Sergio Agüero — arguably the greatest striker in Premier League history — scored 12 hat-tricks in total across his entire City career. Haaland is matching him, methodically, in a fraction of the time.

At the Etihad, in the FA Cup, in the eighth consecutive year. The record books are running out of things to say. City just keep showing up.

The FA Cup will give you Southampton beating Arsenal. It will not give you Southampton beating Manchester City eight years in a row.