​The FA Cup Awards: Berahino, Iheanacho & Benteke

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

Despite the rough time it tends to get, the FA Cup is still one of the biggest prizes in English football. The magic may or may not still be there, but you get lower league teams scrapping with Premier League giants, little-known players thrust into the limelight and, if you're lucky, there's some fun to be had along the way.

This weekend, for example, Tottenham took on Colchester in a stadium that cost half an Érik Lamela to build, while Everton played Carlisle on a pitch that recently looked like a set from The Day After Tomorrow. So, without further ado, we're calling out the weekend's stars in a cup special.

Remember that thing at school where a teacher would try and catch you out mid-chat by asking "what did I just say?" and you'd somehow manage to parrot it back word-for-word like a laser-edged 'fuck you'? That's essentially what Saido Berahino's two-goal curtain call for West Brom was this weekend, reminding the club he's messed about since the summer of exactly what he can do – and why some clubs have entered a bidding war of £20m and upwards for his services.

After trying and failing to force through a move to Tottenham – including a protest via Twitter – the striker has been largely sidelined by Tony Pulis, who actually seems fairly willing to sell him. According to reports, Berahino is so disliked in the Midlands that his teammates have taken to punching him, with his reputation for being a difficult character, turning up late for things and not really trying seemingly enough to put off Spurs from renewing their interest.

This weekend in the cup, however, Berahino nonchalantly put the Baggies ahead twice, scoring with the kind of moves that have been few and far between in his career to date. His first – a neat finish from just outside the box – showed his eye for goal perfectly, using the defender as a shield and bending the ball around him into the corner. The second, a little more reaction based, saw him collect a botched cross, hitting it back across goal into the far corner with great accuracy. Neither was celebrated and, in what we like to think of as a veiled homage to Kanye, he did all he could to not be seen cracking a smile for the entire game.

Today, in case you're living under a Sky Sports News-less rock, is Transfer Deadline Day, so could be Berahino's last at the club. Rather than sulking out a nobody, he's taken his last chance to play football to spite West Brom, like posting a selfie with a new squeeze on Insta within days of a breakup, with an aubergine emoji as the caption.

Let's face it: when you're in the same team as Sergio Agüero, playing under a manager who's preference is a one-striker system, you're hardly going to be on the pitch in the big games. Like the ugly friend in a group photo, nobody is really paying attention to you, so when your time does come it's usually in a game that doesn't appear to mean much. Technically, while it's still possible for City to win all four trophies available to them at the start of the season, they only really want to win the title and Champions League; everything else is basically a bonus.

And yet Kelechi Iheanacho, knowing all this, gives no fucks. Playing me in an FA Cup tie away against an Aston Villa side poorer than Will Smith in The Pursuit Of Happyness, are we? Fine, here's your hat-trick.

Still only 19 years old, Iheanacho looks like he's got a bright future ahead of him. Already a more realistic option off the bench for City than Wilfried Bony, there's no harm in carving out a space for yourself behind Agüero in the pecking order, because there aren't many better players from whom to learn the art of finishing (and of course Sergio is no stranger to the physio's room).

Most second-string players would've turned up at Villa Park and taken a tap-in for their troubles, but it shows that this lad isn't here to pick up his wages and piss about in Manchester for the duration of his contract, which isn't out of the question these days. Yeah, it was 'only' Aston Villa, and a weakened version at that, but you can only beat what's put in front of you – Kelechi did that and then some.

Go to YouTube, have a look back at some of the goals Christian Benteke used to score for Aston Villa, and then watch a recent Liverpool game he's appeared in. Doesn't look like the same player, does it? Eerily reminiscent of the constantly apologetic slump that was known as Roberto Soldado in a Tottenham shirt, Benteke doesn't look comfortable, confident, or happy. He might be running hard, he might be trying to win the ball back when he loses it and he might still be getting in the right sort of positions to score a goal, but when the time inevitably comes, he shits himself – and that's the sensitive version.

Given that Liverpool have ruined every striker they've bought in recent years that wasn't named Torres or Suárez, things don't look good for Benteke at the minute. He looks like all he wants to do is go home, put on his joggers and listen to a Sharon Van Etten record alone in bed, eating ice cream. It's no fun to watch, and it doesn't look any fun to be going through, either. What's that mate? You want to watch the voicemail scene from Swingers again? Sure, just let me grab another tub of cookie dough while I fetch the laptop…

@bainsxiii