FA Cup today – your guide to Sunday’s games

For the final time this season, home advantage will be a factor in the FA Cup before the competition ticks towards the Wembley-bound semi-finals.

Sunday will see the final three quarter-finals play out with as many as three non-Premier League teams duking it out for a spot in the final four. Get your FA Cup bingo cards at the ready as David prepares his slingshot, form books fly out of various windows and the competition’s ingrained sorcery gets plenty of airtime.

Here’s everything you need to know about Sunday’s matches – none of which, of course, are easy games.

For the first time in eight years, at least one Championship side will feature in the FA Cup semi-finals. However, with both clubs inside the division’s top six as the regular season enters its final nine games, perhaps Sheffield United and Blackburn Rovers wouldn’t mind focusing on returning to the top flight at the expense of ending their cup run.

The Blades may be facing financial “cuts, cuts, cuts” – as manager Paul Heckingbottom put it – but history is on their side; Blackburn have not beaten Sheffield United at Bramall Lane since Alan Shearer nabbed a brace to overturn Andy Scott’s opener in 1994 – just two outfielders to have featured for Blackburn this season were alive at the time.

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Grimsby Town have the chance to indelibly ink the club’s name into FA Cup folklore in front of 5,000 inflatable fish-waving travelling fans this weekend. Already, the Mariners have become just the fifth fourth-tier side in the competition’s history to make it as far as the quarter-finals. However, Oxford United (1964), Colchester United (1971), Bradford City (1976) and Cambridge United (1990) all had their fairytale runs concluded before the semi-finals.

Brighton, who sit 76 places above Grimsby and harbour genuine aspirations of European football next season, do not seem like amiable hosts. Although, Roberto De Zerbi insisted that his side are in for “a difficult game” and it would be “a big, big mistake” to underestimate the Mariners as Brighton aim to reach their first semi-final since 1983.

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Fulham first contested a competitive fixture at Old Trafford in 1922. The 2-2 draw the Cottagers earned against Manchester United in the second division has been one of the few relative successes enjoyed by the club at the venue in the subsequent century.

Over the last 101 years, Fulham have won just two matches against Manchester United at Old Trafford, losing 33 of their 40 visits.

Marco Silva has this steely iteration of the Cottagers on course for the club’s first top-half Premier League finish in 11 years but it’s been two decades since the club’s last victory at the Theatre of Dreams.

How to watch on TV