Manchester United 0-0 Middlesbrough (7-8 on pens): Man Utd lose in FA Cup to Championship side

Manchester United crashed out of the FA Cup as Championship side Middlesbrough got here from behind at Old Trafford after which emerged victorious in a nail-biting 16-shot penalty shootout.

It was solely the second time in 11 conferences with Premier League opposition that Middlesbrough had progressed, following on from their equally shocking success at Manchester City in 2015.

United will complain about Middlesbrough’s controversial equaliser, scored by Matt Crooks, who tapped residence regardless of Duncan Watmore clearly dealing with in the build-up.

However, they solely had themselves to blame after failing to take quite a few probabilities in a sport the place that they had 30 pictures at objective, the clearest of which got here when Cristiano Ronaldo missed a penalty in the primary half.

Jadon Sancho appeared to have put United on the highway to the final 16 when he marked his FA Cup debut with a objective.

Instead, United’s most reasonable probability of silverware has now disappeared.

The draw for the FA Cup fifth spherical will happen at 11:40 GMT on Sunday.

A second of controversy

Who might have recognized an alteration to the handball rule would have such an affect on the result of this match?

Following a revision of the interpretation of the rule by IFAB in the course of the summer time, unintentional handball is simply penalised if the participant in query then scores a objective.

So, though the ball clearly hit Watmore’s hand earlier than he lobbed the decisive move to Crooks, referee Anthony Taylor deemed it to be unintentional, because the ball had flicked up off the Middlesbrough man’s physique. This was subsequently checked by VAR Stuart Attwell, who endorsed Taylor’s view.

Given Ralf Rangnick had spent the previous couple of seconds tapping his arm and did so once more as Taylor pointed to the centre circle, desperately trying spherical for somebody to attraction to, it’s truthful to assume United’s interim supervisor didn’t agree with the officers.

A sorry evening for Man Utd

United solely had themselves to blame for the mess they ended up in.

Their profligacy began in the opening two minutes, a horrendous mix-up in the Boro defence ending with Sancho lobbing in opposition to the bar from the sting of the world earlier than Bruno Fernandes fired over when it appeared simpler to rating.

Fernandes didn’t have a terrific evening. He thought he was offside when, unmarked, he headed over from eight yards. But TV replays confirmed the objective would have stood. That miss was about the identical stage as when he hit the put up in the second half with the objective at his mercy.

And then there was Ronaldo, whose evening was summed up deep into additional time when United have been making an attempt to counter and he tried a 10-yard move to Fred, which he overhit straight to an opponent, forcing the Brazilian to make a crude problem on the expense of a yellow card to guarantee the house objective didn’t come underneath menace.

The noise when Ronaldo missed his penalty was louder than when Boro equalised.

In a sport of positive margins, the Portuguese’s try to discover the underside nook after Anfernee Dijksteel had slipped and fallen into Paul Pogba was solely out by a few inches. It was sufficient although.

Sancho did discover the web with assistance from a deflection however United’s wastefulness saved the guests in the sport, that means the VAR controversy actually mattered and by the tip it was Dean Henderson who was wanted to make sure the match went to penalties when he blocked Aaron Connolly’s goalbound effort.

And if United’s night was not depressing sufficient on the pitch, they suffered embarrassment off it as nicely, when a technical fault meant no meals or drinks could possibly be offered at half-time, triggering chants of ‘we wish Glazers out’ from a piece of the United assist.

Repeat job for Wilder

This was not the primary time just lately Wilder had left Old Trafford as a winner.

In January 2021, Sheffield United have been fancied even lower than Middlesbrough have been tonight and secured a 2-1 win.

On this event, although Middlesbrough’s defending was poor initially, they grew into the sport.

Goalkeeper Joe Lumley recovered from a few early errors and bought his positioning proper to make some decisive saves.

The introduction of Watmore, an area boy who began his profession at close by Altrincham, gave Middlesbrough’s assault a spotlight and it was a bitter irony that United academy product Crooks ought to rating in opposition to the membership he supported as a boy.

There was confidence in the guests’ penalties too, with Henderson solely coming shut to stopping one, Middlesbrough’s second, from Martin Payero, which went underneath his physique.