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• Brentford coach praises non-league side’s advances

• Manager John Rooney proud of Macclesfield’s efforts

Keith Andrews made a beeline for the Macclesfield dressing room after Brentford’s fourth-round FA Cup victory at Moss Rose and told John Rooney and his players they had been immense against his Premier League charges.

The Brentford head coach said footballing journeys like the one Macclesfield have enjoyed since their rebirth “fills my heart” as he waxed lyrical about the true test his team were given by the National League North outfit.

“We are top of the league,” sang the Coventry City supporters on loop after returning to the summit of the Championship with a victory that quelled the nagging noise surrounding Frank Lampard and his promotion-chasing side. Coventry, pace-setters for the majority of the season, had won just four league games since the end of November. But Haji Wright hit a timely hat-trick as Coventry again traded places with Middlesbrough, whose six-game winning run came to an abrupt halt, to renew belief in these parts.

Riley McGree pulled a goal back midway through the second half but from the restart Boro conceded a penalty that allowed Wright to claim the match ball. Coventry’s lead may be a single point but this felt a significant victory, psychologically as much as anything, their having taken just 16 from the previous available 39. “There have been quite a few questions asked and I think the lads should get a lot of credit,” Lampard said. “It was a big game, a really good game, which probably showed why we are one and two in the league. We have to take this as a bit of a template of what has to go into a game.”

Wrexham and Mansfield host big guns in round five while Newcastle face Manchester City and Liverpool go to Wolves

TNT have kicked off with a walk-and-talk around a packed Macclesfield dressing room, the only problem being that the camera lens keeps steaming up. Let’s get on with it, shall we?

Three minutes until the draw, according to an on-screen countdown that will inevitably prove to be inaccurate. I think the fifth round is my personal favourite round of the Cup; close enough to Wembley but still with plenty of room for surprises.

• Referee Chris Kavanagh will not officiate this weekend

• VAR was not used in FA Cup fourth round ties

The referee Chris Kavanagh will not officiate in the next round of Premier League fixtures after a series of high‑profile errors during the FA Cup tie between Aston Villa and Newcastle on Saturday.

Kavanagh has been stood down by Professional Game Match Officials, alongside one of his two assistants at Villa Park, Nick Greenhalgh. The second assistant, Gary Beswick, will run the line at Nottingham Forest v Liverpool on Sunday.

• La Penna wrongly sent off Juve’s Kalulu against Inter

• Official could face one-month ban following incident

The referee Federico La Penna has received dozens of death threats after wrongly sending off a Juventus player at Inter on Saturday. Italian police have reportedly advised him not to leave his home.

La Penna sparked fury among Juventus fans after dismissing Pierre Kalulu, showing the defender a second yellow card for a challenge on Alessandro Bastoni. Replays showed Bastoni had clearly simulated the fall. Juventus officials and fans argued that the decision heavily influenced the game, which Inter won 3-2, despite the Bianconeri having fought back to level the score with 10 men.

Rayo had to prepare at Getafe’s place and play at Leganés’s stadium. But they still managed to upset Atlético Madrid

One day in November, the coach of Rayo Vallecano decided that was it: he was out. The captain in whom he finds strength had reached a similar conclusion long ago, handing in his armband as an act of protest and dignity. Two Fridays ago, the squad signed a statement saying they couldn’t carry on like this. And last Friday, the fans who’ve been through it all before decided they too would walk away. Yet 48 hours later, after another week that proved them right, resisting everything, there they were still, celebrating another implausible success, another day when they had stuck it to The Man. If not, admittedly, the man they’d like to stick it to.

Actually, ‘there’? Not all of them were in the same place, even if that was a way of showing they were in this together. Because Rayo fans were out on the streets of the self-styled independent republic of Vallecas with their banners and scarves and songs on Sunday, while their team and coach were 10km south, playing in a different city. With their training ground unusable and their home home ground declared to be so too, they had to prepare at Getafe’s place and play at Leganés’s stadium. Where, in front of 9,000 empty seats, and kicking off in the relegation zone, they only went and beat Atlético Madrid 3-0, three days after Diego’s Simeone’s side had battered Barcelona 4-0.

In an age in which every gripe is highlighted and performative fury is good business, there is an argument that long-termism has become impossible

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Last week, Thomas Frank was sacked as manager of Tottenham and Sean Dyche was sacked as manager of Nottingham Forest. Both decisions were entirely explicable in their own terms. Frank had won only two of his previous 17 league games and Dyche only two of his previous 10. Both saw the improvement of West Ham under Nuno Espírito Santo and felt the drag of potential relegation. When fear sets in and something has to change, football tends to sacrifice the manager.

Excluding caretakers and interims, their departures take the number of Premier League managers to leave their jobs this season to eight, with Oliver Glasner to come at the end of the season, when Marco Silva and Andoni Iraola are also out of contract. Last season there were 10 departures, in 2023-24 nine, in 2022-23 an absurd 18. To give a little context, in the first season of the Premier League, 1992-93, there were only four changes (five if you include Dave Webb at Chelsea, who was effectively an interim, although he did not officially have that title). The average life span of a Premier League manager has dropped from about four seasons to about a season and a half.