Louis van Gaal selected Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie for this game, so he was clearly taking the FA Cup seriously. He also gave Marouane Fellaini a marauding role up front and brought in Juan Mata for Adnan Januzaj, clearly unwilling to take any chances against relatively unknown League Two quantities. Manchester United did have a good look at Cambridge in the first game at the Abbey Stadium but the whole prospect of taking on lower league opposition in knockout games is a potential pratfall for Van Gaal, all too aware that the Cup represents a short-cut to silverware that he is in no position to snub.
Most other observers felt Cambridge might be hard-pressed to keep the clean sheet at Old Trafford that they managed at home, and so it proved. Like the contestants who know their limits on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire – just about the only instant riches routine which Richard Money did not get round to mentioning in expressing his gratitude for this lucrative draw – Cambridge had to be content with pocketing the loot. About £1m from their Old Trafford trip, closer to £2m from the whole Cup run. They deserved their good fortune. Whether the same could be said of the bulk of the crowd is another matter.
The kick-off had been delayed by 20 minutes partly to accommodate Cambridge United supporters’ coaches stuck in congested traffic on the approaches to the stadium. At the scheduled kick-off time it looked as if quite a number of Manchester United fans had been held up too. That is to say, at 7.45pm Old Trafford was around a quarter full, which in the old days, before the advent of the unpopular automatic ticketing scheme, might have been all a replay such as this would attract. It is ironic, though perhaps not completely unfair, that all Money’s vivid comparisons to winning the lottery or dropping a fortune in Las Vegas are partly because United have found a way of milking their supporters so relentlessly. Didn’t fancy the replay? Not all that impressed with the original fourth-round performance?
No matter, that will be an additional admission fee on top of the season ticket price, please, whether or not you turn up.
But that is the crazy world of football finance. Manchester United are a mega-successful money-making machine, currently trying to pretend that being excited about the FA Cup does not hide two seasons of underachievement on the field. Cambridge United were planning to spend some of their FA Cup windfall on new urinals for the dressing rooms, until a few local businessmen caught sight of the state of the dressing rooms and were shamed into offering to install them for nothing.
Still, a night out is a night out, and when the visiting fans finally made it to the ground they soon began to enjoy themselves. They support their local team and all that. They would have enjoyed themselves even more had Tom Elliott scored in the first minute, after a Daley Blind mistake suggested the home side were prepared to be as generous as Cambridge-based plumbers, but though presented with a clear opportunity in front of goal and a surprising amount of time the forward could only strike the foot of an upright.
At least that confounded Van Gaal’s pre-match theory, which was that Cambridge would play with one man up front and 10 behind the ball and try to keep the game scoreless for as long as possible. Not only did Cambridge play with two up; they almost took the lead. That seemed to embolden the travelling support even more, and the Cambridge fans began to chant “What a waste of money” when Ángel di María had the temerity to bang the turf in pain and frustration after Cameron McGeehan had trampled over his ankle. It briefly looked as if the Argentinian might have to go off and, when he recovered to carry on playing instead, he was greeted by boos, so it was almost inevitable that the former Real Madrid player would play some part in the visitors’ downfall.
It took a laboured home side 25 minutes to make anything resembling a breakthrough, but when they did Di Maria was indeed involved, though it was an astute pass from the promising Paddy McNair to find Mata in midfield that began the move. Mata instinctively moved the ball out to the left where he knew Di María would not only be available but accelerating, then moved in on goal to be around when the cross was knocked down by Fellaini.
When Robin van Persie picked out Marcos Rojo to head a second goal from the six-yard line seven minutes later the contest was as good as over. The only remaining interest, for a few thousand fans packed into a corner of the ground, was whether Cambridge would be able to deliver on the terrace boast that they were going to score at Old Trafford. Ryan Donaldson went close towards the end of the first half, McGeehan right at the end, but that was as good as it got.
“Three-nil was about par for the course but it would have been nice to score a goal for the fans,” Money admitted. The manager generously withdrew Luke Chadwick early in the second half so the winger could enjoy even more generous applause from his former home crowd, though the Cambridge terrace contingent remained sceptical. “We forgot that you were here” was their parting shot.
