Article 64 — Manchester United Qualify For The FA Cup Semi-Final (Just About)
Manchester United and their fans risked having salt added to their fresh wounds after witnessing bitter rivals and arch nemesis Liverpool clinch their first league title after 30 years by running the real risk of getting knocked out of the FA Cup quarter-final by the English Premier League’s bottom-placed team, Norwich City.
United was going into this game in great form, unbeaten in the last 13 matches they have played. The confidence was high in the team. Logically, one would think that Norwich wouldn’t pay too much attention to the FA Cup preferring to focus their energy and attention in staying in the lucrative Premier League for next season. The reality defied logic as Norwich nearly upheld the romantic, triumph of the underdog reputation of the FA Cup.
You can view the highlights of the match here:
Manchester United had a lot of possession in the first half and more shots on goal but alarmingly 0 shots on target and no clear-cut chances created. It was a tough watch for me. The match kicked off at 12.30 am in Singapore and the match was dull on the pitch and with no fans in the crowd, I had trouble keeping my eyes open not just for the first half but for most of the match. Norwich outside of one scary moment, offered little going forward while we were passing it sideways and backwards with little going forward in terms of chances or shots that tested Tim Krul in Norwich’s goal.
We scored with our first shot on target through Odion Ighalo. Ighalo had little service to feed on, the first time he got something of note in the box, he miscontrolled the pass. This time he was clinical capitalising on a defensive mistake and Juan Mata’s intervention to sweep us into the lead. I was hoping that goal would give us the fillip we needed for a much-changed side to push on, create more chances and score more to wrap up the game.
The goal didn’t change anything until the impressive Todd Cantwell unleashed a shot from long range which found it’s way into the bottom corner of the net past the despairing dive of Sergio Romero. The commentators criticised Romero for letting that shot get past him and he would be disappointed for letting that go in. While he can be criticised for the goal he conceded, Cantwell deserve credit as well for the shot. Norwich had also come close to equalising before scoring so the warning signs were not heeded.
That goal spurred United to attack with greater urgency and purpose as we tried our best to win it within 90 minutes. Norwich’s Timm Klose was sent off with 2 minutes left on the regulation time for dragging down Ighalo who was clear through on goal. We couldn’t find the winner from the resulting free-kick in a good position and with 8 minutes left including injury time.
The game then transpired into United’s attack vs Tim Krul as he repealed our shots on goal including making a great save off Harry Maguire’s header. The Norwich defence produced great rearguard action, thwarting our attacks and I was very impressed by the young Ben Godfrey. There was a real possibility of the match going through the dreaded lottery of a penalty shootout. I could sense fear and desperation among United players to avoid reaching that stage. Krul was keeping us out repeatedly and had a reputation of being an expert penalty shot-stopper. It was a reputation that was brought to the attention of the world at the 2014 World Cup by our former manager, Louis Van Gaal for his native Dutch national team.
Somehow we scrambled a winner through an unlikely source, our captain Maguire to advance to the semi-finals of the FA Cup for the first time since 2017–18. We extended our unbeaten run to 14 games across all competitions as well but this was probably the poorest we have played in a long time. Looking at it positively, we showed an ability to win ugly but we really didn’t need to expend so much energy to get into extra-time to see off Norwich.
With matches being played every 3–4 days now, we didn’t need the extra strain of playing 120 minutes on the players in the summer heat of England. For us in tropical countries like Singapore and Malaysia, geographically close to the equator, we will not understand the struggles of the players in the English summer when we experienced warmer weather here on most days but it is what it is and we got to empathise.
There were a lot of changes made to the team and that might explain the below-par performance. I had expected to see Daniel James start but he wasn’t even on the bench. Jesse Lingard sadly looks like his time at United is going to be up very soon. He had another ineffectual performance. At the moment, the centre midfield pairing of Nemanja Matic, Paul Pogba and Bruno Fernandes is the most in-form pairing. Scott McTominay and Fred struggled to do much good going forward. Our possession at times was sloppy and poor. At times, we over-hit the ball forward for the attacking players.
I have read some criticism of Fernandes’ performance yesterday. I don’t quite agree. I felt that since he has joined us, he has consistently shown himself to be a risk-taker. At times, it pays off and at other times, it doesn’t. What he needs to do is to find that consistency in his performances and decision-making so that it pays off more than it doesn’t. Yesterday was just one of those performances where more went wrong than it could go right. I was more concerned that he lasted 120 minutes with a match coming on in 2 days time and it seems that there is no valid replacement or understudy for him in the team at the moment.
Anthony Martial looks like he is on fire at the moment. When he came on, he brought something that was missing in our play, pace and trickery. Marcus Rashford looks off the radar. Things that he is attempting are not coming off and we are not seeing him typically taking on his opponents with pace, trickery and confidence. There is some cautiousness in his play.
It’s always nice to see Eric Bailly back in the team. I feel Diogo Dalot needs to play more often to get back in form. He has had a stop-start career at United so far and he has a monster of an in-form player in Aaron Wan Bissaka ahead of him. It will be interesting to see how Ole Gunnar Solksjaer rotates the team to keep things fresh for the next match away to Brighton & Hove Albion. I expect changes for sure.
