Published: 15:11, 7 March 2026 | Updated: 15:11, 7 March 2026

Just before kick-off, a man with an exceedingly long beard drifted expertly away from the group of sponsors walking off the pitch and sidled up to Gabriel Jesus, Arsenal’s captain for the day.

The man held up his phone and asked Jesus to pose for a selfie. Jesus looked a little bemused but he obliged anyway and the man and his beard, ran off to catch up with the group, punching the air in delight.

It was the first time, but not the last, that the Premier League leaders would be made to look uncomfortable by an unexpected incursion from a team sitting 59 places below them in the football pyramid and fretting about the prospect of relegation from League One.

Arsenal survived in the end and are still on course for the Quadruple but Mansfield had beaten Sheffield United and Burnley already in the FA Cup this season and they played a quality of football in this fifth round tie way above their relatively lowly position.

Nearly 10,000 people packed into Field...