FIVE ASIDES FA Cup: Wigan 0, United 2
Do you want the good news or the bad news? Let’s start with the positives. The good news was that United won. They even won 2-0, for the first time all season. They kept a clean sheet. They created dozens of chances. They didn’t have a nervous breakdown. They had five Academy products on the field and seven more on the bench. And one of them was running the show – Kobbie Mainoo, the 18-year-old who can be trusted to take the wheel. He made eight tackles, one of them outstanding, and came close to scoring his first senior goal after carving out some space for himself with a classy touch. He already plays like an old pro, bandy legs and all.
The bad news was that there were just as many negatives. The front five didn’t score in open play. United should have been a goal down after three minutes. The win was only sealed by a dubious penalty. They had 12 corners and never looked like scoring from any of them. The finishing was feeble. The manager was unimaginative, handing out no meaningful debuts – Omari Forson was given two minutes – and leaving Altay Bayindir and Joe Hugill in the cold. If he won’t take the long view on a comfy Monday night in Wigan, when will he?
United’s season has been a see-saw, good enough in one game, nowhere near good enough in the next. This performance, for a change, was both at once. They were easily good enough to see off their humble hosts, but not half as good as they should have been. They had 33 attempts on goal, 28 of them falling to the right people – the front five. Marcus Rashford had eight shots, Scott McTominay and Bruno Fernandes six apiece, Rasmus Hojlund and Alejandro Garnacho four each. McTominay, Hojlund and Rashford should all have scored twice. And so should Wigan, who had one big chance in either half. It should have been 8-2.
The front five are all at different levels of indifferent form. Hojlund, making his first appearance since his leap forward against Villa, took a step back again, missing tap-ins, lacking composure, impressing most with his hold-up play. McTominay confirmed two suspicions: that his hot streak has come to an end, and that he and Hojlund are too similar to make sense in the same XI (both grafters not poachers, both good team players, both allergic to an assist). Fernandes launched a whole fleet of chances but only finished well from the spot, finally scoring his first goal in England since the winner at Fulham on 4 November. Garnacho was energetic, at home in his new berth on the right, but still scattergun. And Rashford remained about halfway back to his best. If still too inclined to run into traffic, he was composed enough to draw four saves out of the Wigan keeper (the irresistible Sam Tickle) and he played a crucial role in both goals, assisting Diogo Dalot’s rather Rashford-like strike from the edge of the box, and supplying the crisp cut-back that enabled Fernandes to win the penalty. Aside from the first goal, he and Dalot didn’t display much rapport. Rashford goes much better with a left-footed left-back, and United have just sent one back to Tottenham, their next opponents. Rashford may well have a goal against Spurs in him, but it will be twice as likely if Luke Shaw is fit to return as his wingman.
The draw, conducted counterintuitively before the match, could hardly have gone better. United will visit a team worse than Wigan – either Newport, seventh from bottom of the fourth tier, or Eastleigh, mid-table in the fifth – for a game that is guaranteed to glow with the romance of the Cup. Meanwhile Man City have to go to their least favourite ground, the Tottenham Stadium, and Chelsea have to entertain Villa, who have already won at Stamford Bridge this season. Liverpool have an easy draw, but then they deserve it after disposing of Arsenal. Over the third and fourth rounds, United are the only big-nine club to avoid Premier League opposition, and the only PL club not to be drawn against anyone from the top two tiers. If they can step around one more banana skin, they will be in the last 16. In the next draw, the chances of meeting another opponent from the lower divisions will be somewhere between six and 11 out of 15, which is 40-73 per cent. Of course, they could still end up with City away, but it does feel as if the gods are on their side.
Tim de Lisle is a sportswriter for The Guardian and the editor of United Writing. If you receive this newsletter by email, please feel free to forward it to a fellow Red.