The difficult second single

Darren Fletcher made a few mistakes, and Danny Welbeck made him pay for them

FIVE ASIDES
FA Cup, third round
United 1, Brighton 2

A cup weekend is a heady cocktail, half triumph and half disaster. On Saturday Macclesfield pulled off the biggest FA Cup upset ever, beating the holders, Crystal Palace, who are 117 rungs above them on the ladder. Suddenly two United old boys whose careers had been blighted by bad luck, Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and D’Mani Mellor, were living the dream. On Sunday evening, in Jeddah, Barcelona beat Real Madrid to win the Spanish Super Cup. Marcus Rashford had only a cameo on the night, coming on for the last ten minutes to replace Raphinha, who had lit up the tournament. But still, Rashford won a medal, revelled in the pleasures of the podium, had a first taste of victory in El Clasico. And what did United do, in between these successes for their home-grown rejects? They trickled out of another tournament.

They’re just the kind of club that should do well in the domestic cups. They have the history, the sense of occasion, the ability to beat anyone on their day and the recent pedigree, after lifting the League Cup in 2023 and the FA Cup in 2024 (say what you like about Erik ten Hag, he’s looking pretty good in the rear-view mirror). As Rashford argued in his interview with Gary Lineker in August, ‘If your direction is always changing, you can’t expect to win the league. You might win some cup tournaments because you have a good coach, [good] players and match-winners.’ In 2025-26, United haven’t even won a single cup match. It’s a bitter blow.

To be fair, this was a tough draw. Brighton love playing at Old Trafford and they had a score to settle after losing 4-2 there in October when they could easily have got a point (on xG, it was 1.29-1.12, much like this game which was 1.73-1.59). Danny Welbeck – yet another Academy graduate – nearly always gets a goal against United, so they knew they’d have to score twice. They created more than enough chances to do that: they had 19 shots, six more than in the league game. But some familiar frailties resurfaced. They weren’t clinical enough (too many of the shots were tame, with Benjamin Sesko, although he scored again, remaining erratic). They had more possession than they knew what to do with (60pc, whereas it had been 44 in the league game). The best chances fell to the wrong people (Diogo Dalot’s touch, when clean through early on, was criminally heavy). Matheus Cunha again looked rather lost (maybe it’s the shock of having a British manager). They faded after a fast start: from the tenth minute to the 80th, United were too easy to play through, too easy to score against.

For Darren Fletcher, after his promising start at Turf Moor, this was the difficult second single. He rested Ayden Heaven and Luke Shaw, which would only have made sense if United had had a League Cup semi-final looming. Without Hayden, Welbeck was up against Leny Yoro, who has had a wobbly few weeks. Without Shaw, United had less threat down the left and worse corners from the right. To compound the error, Shaw wasn’t even on the bench. Fletcher was right to start Kobbie Mainoo (who looked himself again, playing three key passes and achieving 92pc accuracy), but showed unwarranted faith in Manuel Ugarte (who still wins the ball, then has no idea what to do with it) and took too long to bring on Casemiro. He may have been weary at Turf Moor, but Casemiro is often a good-luck charm. With him on the field, United have beaten Brighton 3-0 and 1-0 this season; without him, they’ve lost 2-1 and 2-0.

But then this was only Fletcher’s second game as a manager above Under-18 level. And he had to do without some vital players: Bryan Mbeumo, who scored twice in the 4-2; Amad, who’s better than Dalot or Sesko at controlling through balls; and Matthijs de Ligt, United’s most commanding centre-back this season. Fletcher was also suffering from bad decisions made in the summer, when Ruben Amorim should have bought Welbeck, sold Ugarte, signed a decent No 6 and hung onto at least one of his left-wingers. As soon as Shea Lacey came on and stayed wide, unlike Mason Mount who had been playing as an inside-right, United’s chances improved and so did the mood of the crowd. But Lacey, for all his chutzpah, couldn’t complain about his red card. Even an 18-year-old should be aware that you can’t throw a tantrum a minute after being booked. Fletcher, who knows him well, will surely have taken him aside afterwards and said ‘Don’t ever do that again.’

Tim de Lisle is the editor of United Writing and a sportswriter for The Guardian. He’s been supporting United since the days when they didn’t even score in the domestic cups.