Rashford rumpus clouds scrappy victory
United scrape home but striker saga makes win feel like a defeat...
A DREAM died the bravest of deaths for the little guy and a manager clings to his reins on the shoulders of a dysfunctional and wobbly giant. What a mad ride it was for both sides of such a gaping divide.
That Manchester United ultimately won, and thus avoided one indignity too many for the tenure of Erik ten Hag, circumvented the possibility of them becoming one of the all-time great FA Cup punchlines.
But this being United, even their victories can feel like defeats when there are so many other smells in the air. In this instance, that meant the strange saga of Marcus Rashford (right), whose absence here overshadowed any discussions his manager would have preferred about their progress to the fifth round.
Officially, his striker was too unwell to travel to south Wales, and yet the mystery reeked of disciplinary consequences incurred by Rashford for his night out in Belfast earlier in the week.
Certainly Ten Hag’s repeated insistence that it was an ‘internal matter’ did little to quell the gathering suspicion that another United star might have stepped on the wrong side of his line. In time, those details will be fleshed out, but for now the vagaries do no favours for a club that seem utterly incapable of two solid steps without a good fall.
For a while that was a pattern we also saw on the pitch here, where United were cruising at 2-0 after 13 minutes and then level again moments into the second half, when they were dropped in the muck by a former farmer in Will Evans who grew up supporting their club.
That was wild. That was marvellous. That was the FA Cup in all its glory.
But those 73 rungs of the ladder between United and Newport are indicative of a great many things, and so, just as Graham Coughlan, the County manager, was ‘starting to dream’, reality bit down on his backside. First, there was a goal for 3-2 from Antony, so often a symbol of United’s malaise, and then a strike in stoppage time followed from Rasmus Hojlund.
If the final scoreline suggests some comfort, then closer examination would reveal the lie — United found this far tougher than most anticipated. And far tougher than it should have been after Bruno Fernandes and Kobbie Mainoo smashed the doors down so early on.
But after a lovely strike from Bryn Morris, Newport had the place rocking, and with Evans’s leveller, there was bedlam. Ten Hag was informed at that point by three sides of Rodney Parade he would be ‘getting sacked in the morning’, and goodness they were quite likely right.
It won’t come to that now, not yet, but the ice beneath his feet is extremely thin, one more reason why this Rashford episode could well become far more significant for United.
Big club problems, of course, so let’s not forget this was Newport’s big day. Their troubles have tended to belong in a different category to United — they know what it is to go out of business, and theirs is a club where the annual wage bill is equal to one month of earnings for Casemiro. What a joy to see them land a few punches in their latest Cup run.
Even if all good things come to an end, Coughlan can be proud. His men made it competitive and his fans gave the place the hostility most upsets required.
Indeed, when United’s players and staff emerged from one of the tiniest changing rooms on the circuit, they were greeted immediately with a loud enquiry from the locals: ‘Who the f ****** hell are you?’ For a good few years, United have lacked a decent answer to that very question.
Here, Ten Hag went with a strong side and what choice did the manager have with his back against a wall, a blindfold over his eyes and the rifles nearby? He gave a longawaited debut to Altay Bayindir in goal and a first start since October to Casemiro.
Plainly, they weren’t messing around, which is why they were two up almost immediately. Both goals came from attacks up the wings, with good work from Antony and Diogo Dalot respectively, and each finish was well delivered — low, hard, no touches taken on the edge of the area by either Fernandes or Mainoo. In regards to the latter, it was the 18year-old’s first goal for the club — he has been a ray of light in a grim season for United.
They might have had more, but Alejandro Garnacho hit the bar and Antony botched a free hit from 10 yards. That kept life in the tie and allowed some tension before Morris half-volleyed in from 30 yards via a deflection off Lisandro Martinez.
The excitement became madness two minutes after the break when Evans showed more appetite than Raphael Varane for a loose ball and slid in to level.
Of course, the mood-killer came on 68 minutes, when Luke Shaw cut in from the left and cracked against the frame with his right foot. With better luck, the rebound might have helped Newport, but instead Antony was presented with an open goal. He finished it and Hojlund finished the wider contest in stoppage time.
None of it was pretty but Ten Hag will take anything right now.