PEP TALK
How Man Utd limped into FA Cup final after dressing-room speech from club legend
Man Utd were inspired to make the FA Cup final thanks to a legend that played under Sir Alex Ferguson
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BRUNO FERNANDES has revealed that Manchester United legend Darren Fletcher helped inspire them to reach the FA Cup final.
United threw away a 3-0 lead against Coventry at Wembley on Sunday and were lucky a late extra-time winner for the Championship side was chalked off for offside.
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The Red Devils managed to edge through on penalties to set up a Manchester derby against Manchester City in the final for the second year running on May 25.
Pep Guardiola's men won at Wembley last year 2-1 - a game that saw Fernandes level from the spot at 1-1.
And the Portuguese midfielder – who scored United’s third goal against Coventry – said five-time Premier League winner Fletcher gave a team talk in the Wembley dressing room before the game.
He said: “We were told to believe we can get into the final.
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“It's about pride and getting into another FA Cup final.
“You don’t get here often. We had Fletch speaking before the game and he played in one of the best Manchester United teams in their history.
“He has been here three times at Wembley for the FA Cup. He played 12 years at the club.
“He was in the most successful period of the club and it shows how big it is to be in the FA Cup and how difficult it is.
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“We have to be frustrated with the way the game ended up. At the same time we ended in the FA Cup final and hopefully we can do it differently to last season.”
Fernandes insists United players are not affected by mounting speculation surrounding the future of Erik ten Hag.
Arsenal fans say they 'live rent free in Ten Hag's head' after watching video of Man Utd boss' FA Cup press conference
The Dutchman is under further pressure after United’s collapse against a Championship side.
Ten Hag’s side were spared the humiliation of being on the wrong end of the greatest FA Cup comeback by a marginal VAR decision that ruled out what would have been a Viktor Torp winner for the Midlanders.
But Haji Wright’s toe was a CENTIMETRE offside - and United went on to win the tie on penalties to set up a second consecutive Manchester derby FA Cup final.
United had only won one of their previous seven games before taking on Coventry.
'NOT OUR JOB TO WORRY'
And asked if uncertainty over Ten Hag’s future was weighing down on the players, Fernandes said: “That doesn’t have to affect anyone because we must focus on everything we want to do this season.
“We still have chances to get into European positions in the league, we must finish as high as possible and have an FA Cup final to look forward to.
“It’s not our job to worry about these things that come from the outside or inside or whatever. We have the owners and directors to take care of that and it's about us performing on the pitch and giving our best.”
Fernandes claims Coventry got "lucky" with their comeback but deserve credit for taking the game to the wire.
He said: "We relaxed a little bit and didn't make the pressure as much as we should.
"Then the game became more split and there were more spaces.
'MIXED EMOTIONS'
"Sometimes we had to get deeper and more compact to not give much space to them.
"We felt we could press them. We had good moments of pressure and they used some long balls and we had Harry Maguire and Casemiro winning a lot of duels for us.
"I think it was better for us to press high which we did. But they got lucky with some of their goals but we must give credit to them."
Fernandes though was relieved United got the job done - even though it was far closer than it should have been.
He said: "Obviously, we have mixed emotions. It's been two years in a row we've reached the final, we know how difficult it is to get to the final of the FA Cup.
"Obviously we wanted to get there in a different way, we know the result was in our hands.
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"For the first 70 minutes, we were so good, we controlled the game and then obviously well done from them, they believed, they gave everything they could to get back to the game and they did it.
"We have respect for what Coventry did today but we had everything on our side to get a comfortable result - so that was disappointing."
Victory his never been less glorious than this for Man Utd, says Dave Kidd
By Dave Kidd
PROBABLY only Erik ten Hag’s Manchester United could book a place in an FA Cup final while hanging their heads in shame.
Minutes after the final whistle of this ridiculous semi-final, Coventry’s magnificent underdogs were performing a lap of honour to their cheering fans — while most of United’s players and supporters had disappeared.
Then the Wembley PA system started blaring out ‘Glory, Glory Man United!’ and everybody started laughing out loud.
Victory has never been less glorious.
As a party-starter it, fell flat. As a stab at dark humour, it was sensational.
Even by United’s standards of low farce this was ridiculous.
Now even the unlikely scenario of a final victory over City is unlikely to save Ten Hag’s job.
After all, Louis van Gaal was axed days after United last won this competition in 2016 and his side were never as bad as this current lot.
Read Dave Kidd’s thoughts on the game in full here.
Or click here to check out all of Dave Kidd’s articles.