United will be well up for glamour clash with Gunners

IT may well be the glamour tie of the FA Cup fifth round but a home draw against holders Arsenal was the last thing Manchester United wanted.

United were first out of the pot at English FA headquarters yesterday with all the remaining non-top-flight clubs praying they would be next and handed a money-spinning trip to Old Trafford, a small price to pay for the likely end of their own FA Cup hopes for another season.

Yet as so often with the Cup, few could have predicted what would come next and it was not what United's deputy chief executive David Gill wanted to hear.