The really unfortunate thing for Fulham was that the piece of football that initially sparked one of the most unfathomable five minutes of the season looked at first sight to have been rather heroic.
Having made a bad judgement call when trying to intercept the ball ten yards inside his own half in the 70th minute, Fulham’s Brazilian Willian set off with not particularly characteristic zeal back towards his own goal to try and retrieve the situation.
Willian, 34, got there, too. With his team leading by a goal and on top of a Manchester United side looking tired, flat and largely impotent, his block on the goal line from Jadon Sancho felt and looked inspired. He had run more than half the length of the field at full tilt to try and help his team make it to Wembley.
The problem was that the ball had come off his arm as it deflected wide of the post. It wasn’t necessarily his fault. It didn’t look deliberate. But it was clear on the TV replays. So as referee Chris Kavanagh looked at the VAR monitor on the touchline, we all thought we knew what was coming. Only it turned out that we didn’t. Not a bit of it.
The penalty to United, the red card for Willian and the subsequent equaliser from Bruno Fernandes. Yes, we foresaw that part of it. But it was not this that lost Fulham their bearings and indeed cost them this game. No, what happened next represented one of the most remarkable passages of communal self-harm we have seen on a football field for some time.
As Kavanagh looked at his screen by the dug outs, Fulham manager Marco Silva approached with something to say. Rather too much, it transpired. He was sent off.
Then, as Kavanagh pointed to the penalty spot, he was approached, screamed at and shoved on the upper arm by centre forward and Fulham goalscorer Aleksandar Mitrovic. He was also sent off.
Then, belatedly, it was Willian’s turn to walk for the original offence. So three had gone in the space of a minute.
On the field Fulham had gone from eleven players to nine without a ball being kicked and Willian was the only one to go quietly.
Silva offered his opinion to United manager Erik ten Hag before he walked his walk. Ten Hag looked bemused by that.
Mitrovic, meanwhile, looked ready to take on the world and not in a good way.
He was accompanied on his journey down the touchline towards Old Trafford’s tunnel in the corner by a security guard.
Suffice to say that, had the big Serbian succumbed to the anger within once again, one would not have been anywhere near enough.
When it all settled down, and it had to eventually, Fernandes did indeed roll in the penalty that cancelled out Mitrovic’s 50th minute volley.
Ninety seconds later Luke Shaw crossed low for Marcel Sabitzer to put United ahead.
Fernandes made it three with the last kick of the game and United were in the semi-final at the end of an afternoon that had seen them dominated for more than an hour.
Fulham will doubtless feel hard done by but they shouldn’t do. There were some nits to pick, admittedly.
Should Harry Maguire have been given a second yellow card for a foul that conceded a free-kick by the corner flag early in the second half? Possibly.
Forty minutes with ten men have been too much to ask for a United side looking jaded after so much Thursday night Europa League football.
Equally, the law that deems a goal-line handball punishable by a penalty but also a red card has long felt in need of review.
But, as for the rest of it, Fulham made their own bed and then rolled off it. This was their own fault. Silva is their manager and Mitrovic their most high-profile player.
Fulham may just have survived an equaliser and the loss of one player. Ten men have been known to win a game of football. Nine? Not so often.
So when Fulham seek out culprits for this turnaround, they should really not look very far.
Abuse of officials is rife in football. It’s a stain on the game and sadly is replicated at all levels. Too often it goes unchecked and that is wrong.
Here, finally, was one occasion when a referee decided he would not stand for it and if it changed the game and maybe even the course of this season’s FA Cup then Kavanagh should in no way be held accountable.
That is not to say it was not a shame to see Fulham unravel in this way. It was. Silva’s team – criticised for being uncompetitive in losing last weekend to Arsenal in the Premier League – were the opposite here.
Silva picked a strong team and for the first 70 minutes at least was rewarded with exactly the performance he would have wanted.
Willian was a menace the United defence failed to consistently to deal with. Mitrovic combined deftness with strength and desire. The former United squad player Andreas Pereira was also effective. In the first half, Fulham created half chances.
An Issa Diop header was tipped over. Willian shot wide from 18 yards.
United, for their part, only threatened towards the end of the first period as Marcus Rashford was denied by Bernd Leno in the Fulham goal from an angle and Scott McTominay by a superb block from Tim Ream.
Early in the second period, though, Fulham ran all over United. A Willian back heel allowed Antonee Robinson to shoot high and De Gea responded. From that corner, Willian picked up play and shot low. De Gea responded again. From the next delivery, however, the dam broke as Diop helped the ball on and Mitrovic volleyed in from seven yards at the far post.
With 50 minutes gone, United had plenty of time but were short of ideas. Fernandes did shoot wide after Wout Weghorst headed a long ball down to Rashford and he laid the ball off. But Fulham continued to press and when De Gea clawed away a Mitrovic header in the 66th minute he could only stand and watch as the ball was returned for the striker to try again. This time the ball passed the wrong side of the post.
United are never beaten at Old Trafford as long as there is time on the clock. We know that. But the fact the United break that prompted all the nonsense – Antony down the right and then square to Sancho – came following the breakdown of another Fulham attack tells us everything about the way the river was still flowing at that point.
United manager Ten Hag has seen so much in his first season in England that he will move on quickly from this. But for Fulham the bad taste will linger. They have not contested a domestic final since 1975 so this was a chance lost, an opportunity tossed away. Losing in football is bad enough. Dousing your own prospects in petrol quite another.
SOURCE: dailymail.co.uk
