The FA Cup third round was on January 6th. Port Vale at home. A League Two side drawn against the team sitting second in the Premier League. The kind of fixture that the neutrals loved and the managers dreaded, because anything less than a comfortable win would be treated as a crisis and the win itself would generate no credit whatsoever.
I played the academy. Pope in goal again. Mitchell, Hannam, Webb, Semenyo across the back. Morrison and Kirby in midfield. Townsend and Bojan wide. Eze behind Blake. The B team. The pathway kids and the rotation players, given the stage because they had earned it and because the first team's bodies could not afford another match three days after Leicester.
Port Vale were brave, organised, and ultimately outclassed. Eze scored in the thirty-first minute, a curling effort from the edge of the box that reminded everyone in the ground why Arsenal had once wanted him.
