Category: Football (Soccer)

• Manchester City boss complained ‘ball is not proper’
• Arteta also complained about one used in Carabao Cup

The FA Cup ball criticised by Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola “delivers against all of the testing requirements”, the Football Association has said.

Guardiola compared the ball negatively to those used in the Premier League and Champions League after his side’s fifth-round victory over Plymouth on Saturday and said it was “not proper”.

What Ruben Amorim should do now, Danny Welbeck and an unlikely England call, and why Michael Oliver was right

“Pick the kids!” is a frequent cry when a team are playing poorly, and generally speaking it’s an incorrect one: the last thing a young player needs is to be hurled into a mess of the sort Manchester United are in. But sometimes it works – Mikel Arteta, for example, struggling at Arsenal, eventually promoted Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe because he had no other choice, and hasn’t looked back since. Now Ruben Amorim must make a similar call. A lack of alternatives forced him to persevere with Rasmus Højlund, but over the past week Chido Obi-Martin has earned a chance, contributing at Everton before asserting properly against Fulham, on both occasions more dangerous than Højlund, in less time. And, given United’s league season is over – and, given also, their lack of pace in defence – it might be worth seeing what Ayden Heaven can do, seeking to inject momentum and good feeling into a two-month stretch that threatens to be enervating in the extreme. Daniel Harris

Match report: Manchester United 1-1 Fulham (aet, 3-4 pens)

Match report: Newcastle 1-2 Brighton

Match report: Crystal Palace 3-1 Millwall

Match report: Manchester City 3-1 Plymouth Argyle

Match report: Preston 3-0 Burnley

Match report: Bournemouth 1-1 Wolves (aet, B’mouth win 5-4 on pens)

Match report: Aston Villa 2-0 Cardiff City

• Manager restates ambition to win Premier League
• ‘I’m not naive, that’s why I’m here’

Ruben Amorim hit back at Wayne Rooney after Manchester United crashed out of the FA Cup, by ­claiming that being the club’s head coach aged 40 showed he was not naive.

Rooney, who is United’s record goalscorer, called Amorim naive for saying after the holders’ elimination from the Cup on penalties by Fulham that the club’s long-term goal is to win the Premier League.

• FA Cup red card set to deny Gordon Carabao Cup final
• Brighton manager praises striker Danny Welbeck

Eddie Howe hinted that Newcastle might appeal against Anthony Gordon’s “harsh” straight red card in their home FA Cup defeat by Brighton but seemed virtually resigned to being without the England winger in the Carabao Cup final.

Gordon was sent off for raising two hands and shoving the Brighton defender Jan Paul van Hecke in the head in the 83rd minute of the 2-1 defeat and is set for an automatic three-game ban. It would rule out one of Newcastle’s leading players for the Wembley showpiece against Liverpool in two weeks’ time.

In the squeaky posterior time of this FA Cup fifth-round penalty shootout, Victor Lindelöf and Joshua Zirkzee were the unfortunate ones whose kicks were saved, ending ­Manchester United’s trophy defence.

Fulham won the shootout 4-3 with a kick to spare and the visitors marginally deserved their passage, though this was a slog through 120 minutes of meagre fare that was no advertisement for the world’s ­oldest knockout competition.

Calvin Bassey gave Fulham the lead and Bruno Fernandes equalised, before Bernd Leno made decisive shoot-out saves from Victor Lindelöf and Joshua Zirkzee

Fulham, meanwhile, will have restored players who were rested for this match. With their Premier League status secure, they’ve no reason not to go all-out for the Cup, and given the teams left, they’ve a decent chance of making something happen. Bassey is exactly the kind of centre-back Hojlund can spend an entire match fruitless fighting; Robinson is a one-man left-flank; and Iwobi has excellent ball-carrying capabilities.

Amorim has little in the way of options. He’ll be devo’d about Dorgu, banned for the first of three games – already, his new signing had made a difference, giving United width, balance and physicality, doing the right things and building a promising partnership with Bruno Fernandes. Mazraoui, though a lovely footballer, offers little attacking threat from wing-back, likewise Diogo Dalot on the other side, while there could scarcely be less pace behind the nominal centre-forward, Rasmus Hojlund, both Eriksen and Joshua Zirzkee looking like they run in a wind-tunnel.

When the dust finally settled on a tie featuring two red cards and an endless stream of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it drama crowned by Danny Welbeck’s extra-time winner, Brighton were in the quarter-finals.

Newcastle’s Anthony Gordon, meanwhile, was out of this month’s Carabao Cup final after being shown a straight red card deep in a second half that also featured Alexander Isak’s late withdrawal, accompanied by a physiotherapist, just to exacerbate Eddie Howe’s worries.

• ‘Sometimes you need to lose to grow,’ says manager
• Manchester United face Fulham in FA Cup on Sunday

Ruben Amorim has said the challenges faced in his turbulent first three months in charge of Manchester United have made him a “more complete manager”. The Portuguese took over in November and has overseen five victories in 16 Premier League matches, leaving them 14th.

One of those wins was at Fulham, who visit Old Trafford on Sunday in the FA Cup fifth round. The holders face a crucial week with a last-16 first leg trip to Real Sociedad in the Europa League on Thursday with redundancies off the pitch and poor performances on it.