MY ACCOUNT
Manchester United winger Jadon Sancho should be fit to face Burnley after his goal against Middlesbrough in the FA Cup.
Sancho scored his first goal at Old Trafford since his lucrative move from Borussia Dortmund seven months ago, but Championship side Boro controversially equalised through Matt Crooks on Friday.
The match then ended level at 1-1 and, after no goals in extra-time, it was the visitors who reached the fifth round in a huge upset, winning 8-7 on penalties.
United are straight back to action against Burnley in the Premier League on Tuesday, the second of a hectic seven-match run of fixtures up until February 26.
Despite being replaced by Juan Mata after appearing to have a hamstring issue against Boro, Sancho should be fit to play his part at Turf Moor.
The man who assisted his goal, Bruno Fernandes, is also set to be available as United look to bounce back.
“Jadon didn’t get a knock,” United boss Ralf Rangnick told MUTV. “He was just feeling tired.
“He had no injury, he was just feeling some fatigue and had some cramp so that was the reason why we decided to take him off.
“Bruno had a knock on his back but could play through the whole game.
“With Paul Pogba having been out for two and a half months, it was normal that he was substituted after 65, 70 minutes.
“Physically, I don’t think we need to lift the squad. Hopefully, for Tuesday, we will have all of those players available again.”
United were punished for missing a hatful of chances as they failed to win a home FA Cup match against a lower-league side for just the fourth time in the past 32 such meetings.
Cristiano Ronaldo missed an early penalty, Sancho hit the crossbar and Fernandes squandered a glorious chance when he hit the post.
Overall, United had 30 shots, the most of any team in a single FA Cup match since the start of last season, finishing with 4.32 expected goals to Middlesbrough’s 1.43.
United have now lost six of their past seven shoot-outs in all competitions and the Champions League is their remaining faint hope of silverware.
Despite the damaging loss, Rangnick felt there was not much to criticise in terms of the overall performance.
“We have played well in the last couple of weeks, in the league and also in the first half [against Boro],” added the German.
“I don’t think we could have done a lot of things a lot better, apart from scoring more goals in the first half. We have to take our chances better with more quality than we did.
“The chance that Bruno had, if he had 10 chances like that in a game, he would score nine of them. He hit the post and I think he tried to place that ball almost too accurately into the corner of the goal.
“In the end things like that can happen. Of course he didn’t do that on purpose and for now our full focus must go on the other two competitions [the Premier League and Champions League].
“Of course the players are disappointed like we all are but again this is football, this can happen.”
