Chelsea’s poor form continues as they crash out the FA Cup in round four, leaving Europe as their only real crack at silverware this season. Birmingham keep up their great cup form, Stoke blow away Brighton and an unimpressive Man United XI see off a Crawley side that will no doubt be patronised as “plucky” in many of this morning’s broadsheets.

Carlo Ancelotti dropped Nicolas Anelka and Michael Essien to the bench for Chelsea’s fourth-round replay at home to Everton and, with both January big-money signings ineligible, Didier Drogba returned to the starting line-up, in a game that also saw Yury Zhirkov return from a calf injury sustained back in November. Chelsea continued their recent goal-shy ways, however, failing to score within the 90 minutes for the third game in succession. Frank Lampard’s goal at the end of the first period of extra-time looked like clinching victory, but a fantastic Leighton Baines free-kick with one minute of the match left took the game to penalties. Misses from Anelka and Ashley Cole allowed Phil Neville to step forward and knock the holders out the cup.

As Andy has previously mentioned, this Chelsea loss has a significant knock-on effect in terms of Fantasy Premier League (FPL). With Ancelotti’s side now out of the FA Cup, this upcoming gameweek 28 will see Man United playing twice; first away to Wigan on Saturday afternoon before travelling to Stamford Bridge three days later for the showdown with the champions.This game will be Chelsea’s next domestic match and Ancelotti will surely have his title-holders fired-up for such an occasion. A Scouting the Doubles piece on this is imminent.

Following Everton’s limp display at Bolton last gameweek, David Moyes made three changes to his starting XI for the Stamford Bridge showdown, with Phil Jagielka, Leon Osman and Jermaine Beckford earning recalls. With only one clean sheet in their last sixteen league games, Everton haven’t exactly been offering much in defensive Fantasy Returns, but this gutsy showing will hearten those who are considering any Toffees defenders for their kind upcoming run of league fixtures. Moyes’ team will no doubt be buoyed by this victory and Everton -sitting just three points off the drop zone- will now need to push on and bring this form to the league.

With next week’s Carling Cup Final undoubtedly in mind, Alex McLeish made eight changes from last midweek’s league match with Newcastle for Birmingham’s home tie against Sheffield Wednesday. Ben Foster, Craig Gardner, David Bentley and Nikola Zigic were all benched, with Cameron Jerome partnering Obafemi Martins up front for the first time. After Jean Beausejour grabbed the game’s opener, Martins found the net for the first time in a Birmingham shirt and left-back David Murphy grabbed the third.

Alexander Hleb looks like facing Cup Final heartbreak against his former club, though. Having supplied the assist for Birmingham’s first two goals, he was then stretchered from the field with a knee injury before the half hour mark and replaced by Bentley. McLeish has indicated the midfielder will have a scan in the next 24 hours, with the club currently unsure of the severity.

Matthew Etherington passed a late fitness test on his back to take a place in the Stoke starting line-up for the home match with Brighton, but lasted just 38 minutes before being replaced. Tony Pulis rested Dean Whitehead and played John Carew up front with Jonathan Walters, meaning both Ricardo Fuller and Kenwyne Jones sat on the bench. The front pair rewarded their manager’s faith with a goal apiece, with Walters also grabbing an assist for Ryan Shawcross’ third.

Man United’s starting XI at home to Crawley bore little resemblance to their usual line-up, with only Rafael a regular starter, in a team that also included the likes of Michael Carrick, Anderson and Javier Hernandez. Anderson, struggling with a knock from early on, was replaced at the end of the first 45 minutes by Wayne Rooney, whose only contribution was collecting a yellow card late on. Sir Alex Ferguson must be hugely disappointed by the performances of his fringe players, with not one of them managing to impress in a thoroughly uneventful Old Trafford match.