Brighton handed trip to Newport County in FA Cup Third Round

Well, this is typical. Brighton finally get an FA Cup Third Round draw which would allow Albion fans to tick off a new ground in the one season when away supporters are unable to attend matches, meaning none of us can travel to Rodney Parade for Newport County away.

Which is a shame as this is a tie with plenty of interesting subplots to it. Newport have developed a reputation as cup giant killers over the past few seasons, something which the Albion are all too aware of having been dumped out of the League Cup by the Exiles in an embarrassing 3-1 defeat at the Amex in the 2013-14 season.

In this season’s League Cup, Newport eliminated Watford and took Newcastle United to penalties. Their FA Cup victims over the past four seasons include Leicester City, Middlesbrough and The Leeds United whilst they also forced a replay against Tottenham Hotspur.

If Graham Potter treats this year’s competition with the same sort of disdain with which he did last season’s FA Cup, then Newport will have every right to feel confident about adding Brighton to their impressive collection of scalps.

The Albion sent out their second string for the visit of Sheffield Wednesday to the Amex, spending 90 minutes looking like they could not give a toss. Unsurprisingly, Wednesday progressed with a 1-0 win.

Potter did at least take the Carabao Cup slightly seriously back in September, selecting strong sides made up of players who were considered back ups at the time.

The result was a fun journey to the fourth round of the competition with the likes of Alireza Jahanbakhsh, Alexis Mac Allister and Pascal Gross all getting a chance to shine.

An adventure in this season’s FA Cup would be very welcome, especially given how much joy the run to the semi finals under Chris Hughton in 2018-19 brought.

There is also the Ben White factor which adds further intrigue. White had his first taste of senior football on loan at Rodney Parade in the 2017-18 season, playing 51 times including in those famous FA Cup clashes with Spurs.

It seems highly unlikely that White will feature against Newport for Brighton, but the media will probably latch onto the story. This will at least serve as a reminder to those Leeds fans who still seem to think White was nothing before he moved to Elland Road that his road to becoming a first team regular at the Amex was carefully mapped out long before they played their part.

This will be the third time that Brighton and Newport have met in the FA Cup. In the 1966-67 season, goals from Dave Turner and Eric Whittington gave the Albion a 2-1 first round win at Somerton Park on their way to meeting Chelsea in the fourth round. 1948-49 saw Newport eliminate Brighton 3-1 with Des Tennant scoring the consolation.

There have been 71 meetings across all competitions between the sides with the Albion winning 40, Newport triumphing in 19 and 12 draws.

The tie will take place over the weekend of January 9th-10th. Given Newport’s reputation for pulling off cup shocks, it seems likely that the game will be selected for television coverage so we can all look forward to potentially being made to look very silly in front of the entire nation.