Having beaten Blackburn Rovers in the FA Cup fifth round over the weekend, Manchester United have been handed the toughest draw they could have, with a trip to Stamford Bridge booked in for the quarter-final.
Antonio Conte’s Chelsea, who beat United 4-0 in west London earlier this season, are flying at the top of the Premier League, eight points clear of their nearest challengers, Manchester City, and 12 clear of their FA Cup opponents.
Both sides, having come through hard fought ties against Championship clubs over the weekend, were arguably the favourites to lift the most famous trophy in association football going into Sunday’s draw.
Conte will be aiming for a league and cup double, whilst Jose Mourinho, with one foot in the Europa League quarter-finals and the EFL Cup final this coming Sunday, is gunning for a cup treble in his maiden season as United boss, something needs to give.
While there were easier draws out there than the runaway Premier League leaders, non-league Lincoln City for example, the tie with Mourinho’s former employers needn’t be something to be too concerned over.
The Manchester United side which was sent packing from Stamford Bridge after that 4-0 hiding in October appears, at least, to be a distant memory.
The Red Devils have lost just once since then, an EFL Cup semi-final second leg defeat to Hull which still wasn’t enough to knock them out, and look a completely different animal to that which was struggling for league form earlier this season.
Despite still being sixth in the Premier League standings, thanks to a number of draws in their unbeaten run, Mourinho’s side look a lot more confident and composed on the ball and, although they put in poor performances in the their last two outings have managed to come away with two wins against both St. Etienne and Owen Coyle’s Blackburn plus tonight’s 1-0 solid win over the French.
The fact that they are now grinding out results as well as picking up convincing wins here and there says a lot for their character since that drubbing in west London last year.
Therefore, whilst a clash with Chelsea is by no means easy, it is also something that United will now know they can get through. Since their defeat in October, Conte’s side have also began to show some frailties, they were by no means convincing in their cup win over Wolves, whilst defeat at Tottenham and a draw at Burnley will have highlighted weaknesses the Mourinho would be keen to exploit.
After United got through their European tie this week 4-0 on aggregate, and should they go on to lift the EFL Cup on Sunday, you wouldn’t bet against them getting past the Blues in March and quite possibly going on to lift the trophy. With Zlatan’s reputation for performing in big games for United this campaign you would have to bet on him coming up big and delivering United to their first trophy of the season particularly with the in-form Pogba, Mata and Mkhitaryan backing him up with their fine play