• Both Merseyside teams drawn at home
• Crawley Town and Stevenage to host Premier League opponents

Having seen off Manchester City in the Carling Cup semi-final, Liverpool will need to beat Brighton & Hove Albion at Anfield to keep their tilt for two Wembley final appearances this season on course, having been paired with the Championship side in this afternoon’s FA Cup fifth round draw. Their Merseyside rivals Everton are also at home and will play Blackpool or Sheffield Wednesday, while Chelsea host last year’s Carling Cup winners, Birmingham.

There is only one potential all-Premier League clash, with the winners of the replay between Sunderland and Middlesbrough, who drew earlier today, drawn to play against Arsenal or Aston Villa. Norwich will host Leicester City, while Bolton go to either Millwall or Southampton.

League Two side Crawley Town will host Stoke City in the fifth round. The lowest-ranked side left in the competition beat Hull City yesterday and will be hoping to pull off an even bigger shock against Tony Pulis’s men.

League One Stevenage host Tottenham in a set of fixtures to be played on the weekend of 18-19 February.

The FA Cup fifth-round draw in full: Liverpool v Brighton, Everton v Blackpool or Sheffield Wednesday, Chelsea v Birmingham City, Crawley Town v Stoke City, Stevenage v Tottenham Hotspur, Norwich City v Leicester City, Sunderland or Middlesbrough v Arsenal or Aston Villa, Millwall or Southampton v Bolton Wanderers.

FA Cup 2011-12LiverpoolEvertonStoke CityBirmingham CityStevenageTottenham HotspurNorwich CityLeicester CityCrawley TownMiddlesbroughSunderlandBlackpoolArsenalMillwallBolton WanderersSouthamptonAston VillaSheffield WednesdayChelseaBrighton & Hove AlbionFA Cup
guardian.co.uk

Today’s babble is after one final pay day

Moonlit strolls along the banks of the Seine following romantic dinners for two in the Musée d’Orsay all soundtracked by clichéd accordion music played by a man wearing a beret, blue and white striped shirt, and an onion necklace could soon become a staple in one Chelsea midfielder’s life if TalkSport’s reports that Carlo Ancelotti has made enquiries about bringing Frank Lampard to Paris Saint-Germain turn out to have a grain of truth in them. With his place in midfield far from secure under current manager André Villas-Boas, Lampard has 18 months left on his contract and has already been the subject of enquiries from Manchester United and LA Galaxy, so it’s far from inconceivable that his head wouldn’t be turned by the prospect of one last big day in the French capital. In other news pertaining to Chelsea, Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk say they’ve rejected a £16.7m bid from the west London club for Brazilian midfielder Willian.

Gus Poyet has hatched a fiendish plan to bring Michael Owen to Brighton, according to this morning’s Sun. The former England striker’s opportunities have been strictly limited at Manchester United, but quite how he’d feel about moving so far down south when his well-documented racing and bloodstock interests are based in the north-west is anyone’s guess. Both Manchester clubs are also believed to be interested in Benfica winger Nicolás Gaitán, who has been making reassuring if unconvincing noises about how he won’t be letting talk of a lucrative move to the Premier League distract him.

Manchester United’s increasingly tight-fisted board have refused to countenance a £10m bid for 17-year-old Dinamo Zagreb playmaker Mateo Kovacic, presumably on the grounds that it would be cheaper to coax Sir Bobby Charlton out of retirement. Tottenham and Manchester City will now go head-to-head in the battle to bring the young tyro to Blighty.

The Mirror reports that Liverpool have approached Real Madrid with a view to taking attacking midfielder Esteban Granero to Anfield on loan. Known as “El Pirata” (The Pirate), possibly because he says ‘Arrrr!’ a lot and habitually plays with a parrot perched on his shoulder, the 24-year-old Spaniard has been restricted to just four appearances under José Mourinho this season and is very much for sale, but without any club having put in a concrete offer, Kenny Dalglish is hopeful of sorting out something more short-term with the Bernabéu suits. Liverpool have also denied claims by the father of Rangers striker Nika Jelavic that they are interested in securing the scrawl of his boy, but are believed to be interested in Udinese’s Chilean versatility man Mauricio Isla.

Currently top of the Premier League player ratings awarded by readers of a website not a million miles from here, Swansea goalkeeper Michel Vorm’s consistently excellent performances have aroused interest at Manchester United and Chelsea, according to Swansea director John van Zweden. Swans fans need not fret over the possibility of losing their Dutch keeper, as Vorm insists he has no intention of going anywhere.

Despite being temporarily confined to the dock of Southwark crown court and generally having more important things than usual to worry about in the final week of the January transfer window, Harry Redknapp wants to bring Lazio striker Mauro Zárate to White Hart Lane. Currently on loan at Inter, the Argentinian has previous in England where he spent time on loan at Birmingham City, scoring four goals in 14 appearances, but failing to help them avoid relegation from the Premier League.

Sunderland want to maintain their charge towards the Champions League title by bringing Mohammed Abdellaoue to the Stadium of Light from Bundesliga side Hannover 96. A Norwegian international striker of Moroccan descent, “Moa” has scored 13 goals in 24 starts in all competitions this season.

Newcastle have made an offer for Watford captain Aidy Mariappa, a 25-year-old English defender of Fijian extraction who has spent his entire professional career to date at Vicarage Road. Elsewhere in the Championship, Barnsley manager Keith Hill is hoping to bring Stoke City midfielder Michael Tonge to Oakwell, while Reading are hoping to recruit Blackburn striker Jason Roberts.

Transfer windowChelseaParis St-GermainManchester UnitedBrighton & Hove AlbionLiverpoolReal MadridTottenham HotspurEuropean footballBarry Glendenning
guardian.co.uk

• Conservative MP says it would be helpful to hear from clubs
• Culture committee chairman says no decision yet on witnesses

The parliamentary inquiry into racism in sport is considering whether to ask a representative of Liverpool to give evidence about their handling of the Luis Suárez racist abuse charge, with two influential MPs on the committee critical of the club’s response.

Suárez was banned for eight matches for abusing Manchester United’s Patrice Evra, including, a Football Association disciplinary panel decided, making references to the colour of the defender’s skin. Steve Rotheram, the Labour MP for Liverpool Walton, said the affair had contributed to a reopening of the “fraught” issue of racism. “In hindsight I am sure there are things Liverpool did which they will regret,” Rotheram said of the club’s still unqualified backing for Suárez, before and after the decision.

“They took Luis Suárez’s side in the argument straight away, which shows loyalty to their player you could say is admirable. But that continued after the judgment went against them so it made Liverpool look as if they were supporting someone who did say those things.”

Rotheram said the purpose of the inquiry by the culture, media and sport select committee is wider than an examination of the Suárez case, or that of John Terry, the Chelsea and England captain, who has been charged with a racially aggravated public order offence for alleged abuse of the Queen’s Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand.

“I put forward the suggestion of an inquiry because of these two incidents. The issue of racism needs to be lanced now,” Rotheram said. “We need to see if we can draw lessons from it, not only for football, but sport in general.”

Damian Collins, the Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe, said he thought it would be “helpful and useful” to hear from a representative of Liverpool and Chelsea about the way the clubs respectively handled the racism cases against their players.

“It would be very good to get one of the clubs in and talk about how they deal with these allegations,” Collins said. “It looked like Liverpool were supporting Luis Suárez as if it were any other disciplinary matter, rather than something as serious as racism allegations. I am not saying they do not take it seriously, but it is very important to consider how it looks from the outside. We all thought because of the work done over the years that the problem had largely gone away, but now it seems to have come back, and we need to understand it.”

The committee’s chairman, John Whittingdale, said it will decide which witnesses to call after receiving written submissions from interested parties. He said that only one day is likely to be made available for hearing witnesses in person, and that they will certainly want to hear from the Football Association, Premier League and the anti-racism campaign Kick It Out. Whittingdale said the committee has not yet decided whether it will consider it to be within the short inquiry’s remit to interrogate the handling of specific cases, including those of Suárez and Terry.

LiverpoolChelseaRace issuesDavid Connguardian.co.uk