FC United of Manchester22 – 6Altrincham6

Altrincham, a National League side, controlled the first meeting at Moss Lane but could not score, and FC United's clean sheet takes the tie back to their own ground. The venue swap is the substantive detail: a seventh-tier team that defended deep with little of the ball away from home now plays at Broadhurst Park, where it will be asked to do more than absorb. Altrincham's problem becomes breaking the same defensive shape without a home pitch and a full Moss Lane behind them. The counterweight is that Altrincham's control produced the chances, so a repeat of the pattern would again leave the tie decided by conversion rather than by territory.

The visitors' away results have been all-or-nothing this season, unlike their home form.

Altrincham's away games have been settled one way or the other, which sits awkwardly against the idea of the replay drifting to another stalemate. Seven matches is a small sample, so this is a pattern rather than a rule, and the goalless draw at Moss Lane shows this side can be held for 90 minutes. FC United's part in that first game was disciplined defending rather than an open exchange.

Replays must be settled before the first round is played, so the draw is squeezed into the Monday between the original tie and this one. The practical effect is that the reward for winning on Tuesday stops being an abstract place in the competition and becomes a named opponent roughly a day before kick-off, which is unusual for a tie that still has to be resolved. It is an occasion and stakes detail rather than a selection one, and it cuts both ways for Altrincham, whose National League campaign runs alongside a second cup night inside four days.

Four-figure away followings are rare at this stage of the FA Cup, and this one came from a seventh-tier club visiting a National League ground. The same support now gets the return at Broadhurst Park, where the crowd is on FC United's side rather than against them, so the replay should be the more partisan of the two meetings. The limit is that a travelling gate describes the club rather than the eleven: it was Altrincham's control of the first game, not the size of the away end, that shaped the 0-0.