The latest cartoon from David Squires turns its attention to the shocks and flops of the FA Cup quarter-finals, with particular focus on humiliating exits for Arsenal and Liverpool.
The piece continues Squires’s long-running football commentary in cartoon form, using the latest round of results as material for his familiar mix of satire and observation. This time, the spotlight is on the clubs who came away from the quarter-finals with plenty to answer for, as well as the easy targets and odd moments that tend to follow a dramatic cup weekend.
Among the details highlighted is Hugo Ekitike’s shirt swap, which features as part of the cartoon’s broader look at the round. The mention sits alongside the wider theme of the quarter-finals: the kind of football storylines that invite comic treatment because of how unexpectedly they unfold.
The cartoon is presented as part of Squires’s ongoing work for The Guardian, where his illustrations often capture the frustration, absurdity and exaggeration that come with major matches and tournaments. In this case, the FA Cup provides the setting, and the quarter-final stage delivers the material.
Readers can buy the cartoon through the link provided by The Guardian, and the page also points to Squires’s favourites from 2025. The promotional note further references his latest book, Chaos in the Box, which is available now.
As ever, the cartoon leans on the tension between the seriousness of competition and the lighter side of football culture. Arsenal and Liverpool’s exits are framed as the headline disappointment, while the mention of low-hanging fruit suggests the kind of obvious jokes and easy targets that often follow a set of unexpected results.
The result is a cartoon built around the aftermath of the quarter-finals rather than the matches alone. It reflects the way a single cup round can produce both sporting drama and the kind of comic reaction that helps define the week afterwards.
For followers of Squires’s work, the new piece fits neatly into his regular approach: drawing on the biggest talking points in the game, selecting the sharpest details and shaping them into a compact visual take on football’s latest upheaval.
