It is nice to get this big win over Rochdale to progress to the Quarter final of the FA Cup. Too bad that we didn't get 1 or 2 more goals as that would have made this our biggest FA Cup win since 1960. Apart from the tense first half, we played well and fully deserved this win. We always have to score first to win and we duly did that. The VAR and the referee almost spoiled it for us by wrongly disallowing 2 goals but we did enough to get this convincing win. It would have been better if Kane had come on and scored a few goals as well.
Credit to Llorente, Son and KWP for the goals. The football world must be in rude shock after seeing Llorente get this unexpected hattrick ! Suddenly Llorente looks like a goal machine as he took all his goals well. Maybe Llorente only scores when it is snowing and VAR makes comedy of errors ! Son scored 2 goals and assisted 1 goal but was very annoyed he wasted the penalty with fancy tricks. Thought the penalty should have been retaken due to infringements but Son gave the ref excuse to rule it by feinting in the run up to the penalty. It was really stupid as he was facing an unknown Rochdale goalie, not De Gea or Buffon ! If he was not very confident to take the penalty, he should have given it to Llorente or Lamela. Thought Lamela was our best player as he had a legitimate goal not given, assisted 2 goals, hit the post from a well-taken freekick and had chances to score 2 or 3 other goals.
Our midfield had a decent match but was not really tested by Rochdale. Sissoko and Winks had a mixed match, playing well in patches but making many mistakes as well. Really expected more from Sissoko but he didn't help our attack much. Moura played well and assisted 2 goals. Like Lamela, Moura will be disappointed he didn't score at least 1 goal. Credit also to Alli for coming on and assisting the goal for KWP.
Our defence are not the same when Alderweireld and Vertonghen are not playing and so it was proved yet again. It was always risky having error-prone Dier and Foyth in defence and we conceded another soft goal. It is annoying that we conceded 3 goals in 2 matches against Rochdale. We need to improve our defending if we want to win a trophy this season. Well done to KWP for scoring his first ever goal for us.
We have been very fortunate with the luck of the draw by getting weaker teams in the FA Cup so far. But we need to play much better when we face Swansea in the Quarter finals. Let's hope we will lift our game and go all the way to win the FA Cup this season.