Middlesbrough beat Manchester United on penalties in FA Cup fourth round tie.

 Middlesbrough beat Manchester United on penalties in FA Cup fourth round tie. 

It all unravelled quite horrifically for Manchester United. The FA Cup has been very good to United over the years and their relationship with the most famous competition in the world has never been anything less than harmonious. But after almost two hours of heart thumping, gripping and nerve racking football Manchester United went out of this year's competition quite remarkably and limply in the end. 

The Old Trafford faithful of course- over 70,000 of them on a Friday night- were in sombre mood for the evening's entertainment. This is the 64th anniversary of the dreadful Munich air crash where the very life force was taken from the Busby Babes after they had tragically lost their lives on a snow bound Munich runway. But the memories of Sir Matt Busby's legendary young team could still be recalled on an evening when the FA Cup once again held the attention of the nation again. 

In 1958 Nat Lofthouse's Bolton Wanderers eventually went on to beat United in one of the most emotional FA Cup Finals for many years. To the neutral it may have been the one year when most of us would have been willing United onto victory. 64 years on and the current United generation were overwhelming favourites against a Middlesbrough side now in the Championship. But the FA Cup is a playful, capricious child, unpredictable at the best of times and never reliable when you want it to be. Manchester United were beaten on penalties after extra time when Anthony Elegana had blasted the ball over the bar for United.

And yet how on earth had United allowed themselves to be sucked into a war of attrition with Middlesbrough. In the game's opening stages United swarmed all over their North East opponents like bees around a honeypot. In fact had they taken advantage of their early lead over Boro, then the game could have become a simple formality. United were, as usual, adventurous, quick thinking, impulsive and full of sparkling passing movements that left Boro lost and helpless. 

When Ole Gunnar Solksjaer was sacked, United were left without any steering wheels, a broken engine and were completely at a loose end. The Norwegian had delivered decent service to United but he couldn't stop United sliding into quicksand. United were losing games, dropping points here, there and everywhere and going nowhere rapidly. Then Solksjaer was given the old heave ho but left the club with dignity intact. United fell apart and never really recovered their poise until Ralph Rangnick, their temporary boss, pulled the club back from the brink.

Last night Rangnick looked as though he was being soaked by a mini monsoon, the rain pouring from wintry Manchester skies in biblical fashion. For a while Rangnick appeared reasonably happy with proceedings since United were knotting their passes together with impeccable precision and then gathering around each other in tight circles, geometric angles on their minds and neatly shifting the ball to each other in the closest proximity. The ball flickered across the pitch as if it were attached to a permanent piece of string. 

When Jadon Sancho gave United the lead after Cristiano Ronaldo had missed a penalty for the home side, it looked as if the red shirts would form an orderly procession around Boro. Then we half expected United to move their bishop to an attacking position near the queen before knocking over Boro's castle and king. The ball was like a magnet for United, their passes lovingly crafted, their instincts always correct and all that was missing was the end product and a score-line that should have been far more embarrassing but for wasteful United finishing. 

United though under the astute leadership of Harry Maguire, the always energetic Luke Shaw, the always imperious Paul Pogba and the composed Raphael Varane, were like a well manufactured product made at the most high tech of factories. Then the ball would click and snap between red shirts with Scott McTominay drifting and loitering with menacing intent, Bruno Fernandes full of cleverness and ingenuity in midfield while Jadon Sancho and Cristiano Ronaldo were tormenting Boro for the fun of it.

But although Sancho had turned his defender inside out and fired United into a well deserved lead, Ronaldo had unthinkably missed a penalty. And yet United were simply in cruise control of the game and brimming with imagination. Their attacks were built with clay and marble, all of the smooth surfaces polished to perfection. Everything was going swimmingly well and Boro were reduced to token breakaways that were about as ineffectual as it was possible to be. 

In the second half United seemed to lose their attacking momentum, slower in their approach play and jittery in possession. The advantage was still there and then suddenly Boro began to catch United napping on the ball. Boro's counter attacking policy became fully formed with Jonny Howson, Neil Taylor, Andres Sporar, Folarin Balonga and Marcus Tavernier springing forward into the United half  threateningly and surprisingly. 

Mid way through the second half United were once again caught off their guard. Boro were now flooding into attack, sharper and revitalised. A neatly floated ball into the path of DuncanWatmore led to a moment of fierce controversy. Watmore had controlled the ball and then it seemed to hit his hand in the heat of the moment. Surely this was blatant handball but when VAR came out of the cupboard, the laws of the game were turned on their head. According to the current interpretation the handball was accidental and all hell broke loose for a minute or two. United though had to grin and bear it. From Watmore's easy pass Matt Crooks lunged in to equalise for Boro. 

Now the match went into extra time and United were still piling on the pressure remorselessly. Fernandes had hit the post when the goal was inviting him to tap the ball into the net and United's goal-scoring opportunities were multiplying. But Boro had already put up the steel shutters. They were determined to keep United at arm's length and succeeded admirably in their ultimate objective. 

And so the match went to those agonising penalties, the lottery of lotteries. United have rarely visited this territory so none of us knew what to expect. There was a part of us that sensed that Boro had played themselves to a standstill and would probably buckle from six yards. But this was no ordinary game and after a tennis style tie break Anthony Elenga stepped up for United and fired his shot wildly over the bar. Middlesbrough were into the fifth round of the FA Cup. Football, hey! It keeps baffling you and then before you can blink it does so again.