FA Cup replays a remnant of the good old days

DID alright last night, did we? Writing this on a Monday, all I see is this when I look at Lille: a mundane opposition, well off the pace in a poor league, who have only won 10 games all season and who have only scored 30 goals, without key players lost to injury and suspension.

So if we haven’t given them a bit of a hiding, I ought still to be cross enough about it all to have a quick rant about it next week...

In the meantime, glory be to the old FA Cup and its traditions. Which today encompasses unexpected tricky replays at nasty little “minnow” grounds, and that comedy perennial of Manchester City ramping the Giddyometer up to eleven.

The latter we can give short shrift to, as usual: there is thankfully no way they are getting past either Arsenal or Blackburn away, and I trust they know it.

Wembley fever ought to have lasted about 22 hours for our Blue friends.

Non-Mancs may wonder why such an issue is even addressed in this column, let alone being the first thing I think of, but it is a key part of the pre-spring ritual here in the city: watching the Bitters mentally booking their trophy-parade buses, as they have so many inglorious times since 1976, and rubbing Red hands together in anticipatory glee of the wheels falling off said bus. Usually followed by bus falling into a large crater.

Replays, meanwhile, have become the issue du jour thanks to Arsene Wenger’s whingeing.

He seems to have taken offence at the cheek of Fate to have threatened his precious training schedules.

Personally I love replays, and not just because they are an endangered species, a remnant of the good old days.

Pause to recall old United favourites: the triple-headers against Sunderland in both 1964 and 1977 (League Cup).

Sigh. Proper epics of blood and thunder, remembered forever. A replay turns a mere chapter into a possible saga and can give a whole FA Cup run a true character: embrace it, Arsey.

Perhaps he still hasn’t got over the horrors of the 1999 semi-finals, eh?!

That doesn’t mean we look forward to going to Reading per se, a horrid stadium with an equally ugly smalltime crowd. But I’m still satisfied we have to do so — and besides, a knockout win for either side on Saturday would’ve been unjust reward, however it might have been contrived.

United proved my point, once again, that our much-vaunted squad-depth may well be talked-up by Fergie on a weekly basis but rarely produces any justification when it is tested.

The ‘stopped clock’ I discussed last week — Ji Sung-Park — was back to his business-as-usual hat-trick-missing worst.

And what of O’Shea and Fletcher, specifically namechecked before the match by Fergie as having “developed into solid performers” since Lille ‘05?

Fletcher was summarised by the NOTW thus: “what does he do apart from run about and play five-yard passes?”

Whereas O’Shea couldn’t even get off the bench — no, not because of his weight!

Ronaldo, as ever, provided the only abiding memories. A price for that ability to provide dreams has to be paid, of course: pressing suitors.

Next morning, the Sunday Times Sport frontpage duly announced that Real’s president was discussing a Mourinho-Lampard-Ronaldo package with Jorge Mendes. Ring a bell?

It’s a story you would have first read here three weeks ago. Do keep up, pressbox chaps.

Fulham away awaits on Saturday: beaten 4-0 by Spurs, whom we in turn just beat 4-0.

My four-year-old nephew has just informed me that this means we therefore ought to beat Fulham 8-0. He also thinks City will win the Cup. Kids today, eh?

* Richard Kurt is author of “The Red Army Years”