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Shocker Saturday - giants crash out of cup

THE FA Cup has produced many famous upsets down the years but on few occasions can it have played host to a day quite as remarkable as Saturday with Premier League giants Chelsea and Manchester City among the long odds-on shots who crashed out of the competition.

Chelsea, who looked like justifying their 1-7 status after cruising into a 2-0 lead over Bradford, were stunned 4-2 by the League One side at Stamford Bridge.

Bradford were 25-1 at the outset and touched 459-1 in-play on Betfair’s exchange before goals from Jonathan Stead, Felipe Morais, Andrew Halliday and Mark Yeates produced a result which left Jose Mourinho “ashamed.”

There was £44,000 matched on Chelsea at 1.01 and just under £1.8m matched on them at 1.15 or lower on Betfair’s exchange. Ladbrokes had been offering 500-1 about Bradford winning 4-2 and reported one bet on the outcome – a £10 wager in a shop in Telford.

At least one person with Chelsea connections was celebrating with Blues loanee Patrick Bamford on target for Middlesbrough in their amazing 2-0 win against City at the Etihad.

Kike was also on target as a City side who started with the likes of Vincent Kompany, David Silva and Sergio Aguero were dumped out just like Chelsea as Boro landed an 11-1 stunner.

The Bradford-Middlesbrough double alone was 311-1 with BoyleSports and the carnage did not end at the front two in the ante-post outright market either with a number of other odds-on shots failing to oblige for their backers.

Southampton, third in the Premier League, went the same way as the two teams above them in the table after a topsy-turvy 3-2 home loss to 5-1 pokes Crystal Palace and Tottenham’s hopes of a cup double are over following Leicester’s late show in a 2-1 success at White Hart Lane saw the 9-2 Foxes progress.

Liverpool are, at least given the carnage elsewhere, still in the competition but they were unable to justify a price of 1-3  in a goalless stalemate with Bolton at Anfield and 4-6 Sunderland were held by the same score by Fulham.

It left only a few speculative punters celebrating with the majority handing back the chunks which had been won during last weekend’s record payout.

“We have gone a long way to recouping the losses,” said Steve Freeth of bet365, while Hills spokesman Joe Crilly called the fightback “astonishing” and Betfred’s Mark Pearson added: “After a proper bashing last weekend we have now fallen back in love with the FA Cup.”

Betfair’s Barry Orr commented: ‘This will forever be remembered as spectacular Saturday by the bookmakers, it’s an absolute bonanza for layers.”

Swansea, who finished with nine men, were also beaten 3-1 at Blackburn and 13th-placed Palace are incredibly the highest-ranked club definitely through to the fifth round.

And given the crazy results the outright FA Cup market has had a remarkable makeover.

“Our ante-post book is now looking a lot healthier,” said BoyleSports’ Liam Glynn and bookmakers were also happy to see the end of Chelsea’s quadruple hunt which had some small-staking punters dreaming of a monster payout.

Manchester United, who had started the weekend of flopping favourites with a 0-0 draw at Cambridge on Friday, now find themselves market leaders to win the FA Cup at 11-4.

Arsenal, who head to Brighton on Sunday, are next at 3-1 and West Brom, who beat Birmingham 2-1, are into 16-1.

Match in Focus

19:45 TODAY

Bradford v Notts Co

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