Monday Cannon Fodder: Holiday

Good Monday morning, TSFers! I hope y’all have Presidents’ Day off or at least have a quiet day at the office. I just looked up what Presidents’ Day was meant to celebrate because I’d either forgotten or never knew. It was originally created to commemorate George Washington’s birthday but colloquially shifted to remember all presidents in the 1980s. The holiday was first observed as an official federal holiday in 1879. It has a bunch of different names across states, so many that I’m not going to bother listing all of them (Wikipedia has my back).

For some reason, U.S. businesses have decided that Presidents’ Day is the time to have some of their best sales of the year. If you need a new mattress, you should buy it on Presidents’ Day sale. I’ll be perusing the online deals for things I probably don’t need and trying to resist wasting money. Let’s hear it for consumerism, I guess.

There are two more FA Cup matches this round — Macclesfield Town vs. Brentford at 2:30 pm ET on ESPN+. Port Vale vs. Bristol City was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch and won’t take place until Tuesday, March 3rd, with the 5th round fixtures taking place that weekend (March 7th).

The 5th round draw takes place at 1:30 pm ET. In addition to whoever wins the two remaining fixtures, Arsenal could face any of Liverpool, Fulham, Sunderland, Southampton, Wrexham, Chelsea, West Ham, Mansfield Town, Norwich City, Wolves, Newcastle, Manchester United, Manchester City, or Leeds United. That’s 11 or 12 Premier League teams among the 16 remaining in the competition. So much for the magic of the cup.

I’m starting to think there should be a competition for all the teams in the English pyramid except the clubs in European competitions. I don’t think you could run a cup without the Premier League teams altogether, mostly because you need the money they attract, but also, you want clubs in the bottom half to have a shot at glory. Tough nut to crack.

Who would you like to see Arsenal draw?