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Manchester United scraped previous Nottingham Forest 1-0 of their FA Cup fifth spherical tie on Wednesday to arrange a blockbuster quarterfinal encounter in opposition to arch-rivals Liverpool.
The purpose got here on the stroke of 90 minutes with Casemiro glancing in from shut vary from a harmful free-kick delivered into the field by Bruno Fernandes.
The sport was yet one more instance the place the Pink Devils have been below-par for a lot of the recreation however ended up securing the win. Supervisor Erik ten Hag’s job was doubtlessly on the road if his staff exited the competitors on the Forest Floor.
The Dutchman is aware of this competitors is his greatest shot at remaining within the job as qualifying for the highest 4 within the Premier League seems like a tough ask at this second.
Rashy struggles once more
The Dutchman has not been accomplished any favours by the large harm listing however rather more is anticipated from such an expensively assembled staff.
Marcus Rashford seems fully off color and rumours of the Mancunian presumably being included in Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s deliberate summer time clearout appears warranted.
Not solely was he poor, his physique language is suggestive of a participant who has given up and the striker simply doesn’t appear to know the right way to decide himself up when the chips are down.
Not one of the attacking stars have been notably good and it took the skilled duo of Fernandes and Casemiro to information the staff dwelling ultimately.
The Portuguese was revealed to be struggling within the build-up to the sport and the supervisor had hinted at resting his skipper who hardly misses the sport.
However as Ten Hag identified in his pre-match quotes, it is extremely troublesome to maintain the Portugal worldwide out and he was determined to become involved.
Bruno’s resilience
He was not notably good on the evening and fluffed presentable probabilities within the second half however it’s his want to maintain at it {that a} participant like Rashford can be taught rather a lot from.
Fernandes is rarely shy and may get on even the nerves of his teammates however he’s genuinely one of many solely world-class gamers on this staff presently.
The supervisor might be hoping for extra from his skipper with the Manchester derby within the Premier League up subsequent.
Whether or not the supervisor chooses to concentrate on the FA Cup totally might be attention-grabbing to see if his staff undergo defeat in opposition to Pep Guardiola’s aspect.
