I expected to see a bit of a circus in Sunday's derby given the situations of the two Manchester clubs but instead, we got it tonight as Spurs and United...
One can't even begin to explain that as both sides appeared to try and outdo each other for absolute shiteness.
Those mistakes from Spurs and United sort of overshadowed an otherwise decent performance from a heavily rotated MUFC team.
Ruben Amorim made five changes to his starting XI to the one that played against City and for the most part, looked to be playing in a similar fashion to what many would've said was United strongest possible team on Sunday.
It was a slow start by the away side but they soon grew into the game and began controlling proceedings. Christian Eriksen in midfield (a player playing his first minutes under Amorim since the 1-1 draw with Ipswich) was particularly influential against his old club as he was the man conducting the game.
But as has been the case with United for a long time, we end up shooting ourselves in the foot.
Spurs get a free-kick and play it out wide to Son Heung-Min who plays it into Pedro Porro. He then takes a shot under no pressure from all but 30 yards out. It takes a slight deflection resulting in a poor parry from backup goalkeeper Altay Bayindir (who was playing his first minutes under Amorim). That parry came out to Dominic Solkane who managed to stay on side and was quicker to react to the second ball than a static United defense.
The Spurs striker made no mistake and slotted the ball in off the post to make it 1-0.
An unnecessary and stupid goal to concede at a time when we were beginning to dictate the play.
The first half didn't have too much incident as while MUFC did create some decent openings, particularly down the left, failed to make the most of them as their best opportunity came from an Eriksen shot at the edge of the box from a Dalot cutback. That was blocked and was all Amorim's side could really muster in that first half.
1-0 down at halftime but not playing too badly sucks ass but it isn't the end of the world. Amorim will have no doubt been relatively satisfied with what he saw and would've asked for more of the same with just the addition of creating more up front.
They do the exact opposite and concede again a minute into the second half 🤦.
Whatever the manager told his players during the break obviously went in one ear and came out the other as after that Dejan Kulusevski goal, just 8 minutes later, Solanke scores his brace and Spurs' third which all but sealed the deal 🙃.
3-0 down in an hour after a good first half and only being 1-0 down at halftime. That's a capitulation that Spurs themselves would've been proud of.
However, they did try their best to show us how it's properly done.
Ruben Amorim then brought on Mainoo, Zirkzee and Amad for Eriksen, Hojlund and Antony after he had to make a first half change as Victor Lindelof picked up an injury after just returning from one. Jonny Evans came on for him.
What mistakes United and Bayindir made at the back was something Fraser Forster in the Spurs goal wasn't going to take lightly as he wanted to get in on the action as well.
He tried to play out from the back but instead played a hospital pass to his defender which was pounced upon by Bruno Fernandes who played the ball across the six-yard box which made it's way to Zirkzee who scored a tap-in.
3-1 with half an hour to go. Perhaps it wasn't completely over?
As I said, Tottenham did try their best to show us how it's done in terms of a complete capitulation as 7 minutes after that initial goalkeeping error, Forster makes a second in which he took too long on the ball and thanks to some great pressure by Amad, the Spurs' backup 'keeper cleared the ball onto the forward with the ball ending up in the back of the net.
3-2!
Defensive mistakes from both teams put on quite a show for the neutral although I'm not sure either Postecoglou or Amorim would've been best pleased with what they saw.
With time running out, the United boss played his final trump card and brought on a returning Garnacho as his final change in the hopes that the player he left out of the derby entirely could show exactly why that was a mistake.
However, he never really got enough of the ball and in the 88th minute, what has been United's weakness all season, came to the fore once more as Son scores straight from a corner.
Yep, straight from a corner.
Bayindir felt that he was unfairly challenged by Lucas Bergvall hindering him from getting a clean punch on the ball resulting in a goal directly from a corner. Bayindir's protests fell on deaf ears and actually ended up getting himself booked.
4-2 with 6 minutes of added time surely was too little, too late for the Red Devils.
Or was it?
Weirdly, United manage to score from a corner of their own.
A great ball by Amad managed to get onto the head of Evans who steered it into the goal. That is now 10 goal involvements in his last 10 games for Amad.
4-3 with a couple minutes left. Surely not? Even Spurs can't throw it away from here?
Luckily for them, they didn't. Unluckily for Amorim, his side couldn't pull off any more late heroics to at least take the game to penalties.
A crazy and comedic game ends with Ange and Spurs scraping through to the semifinals while United will be thinking what could've been.
At the end of the match, both managers had a long embrace in which they probably talked about how poor their players were and how terrible the defending was to let such goals go in.
Amorim will have been encouraged with what he saw for large portions of that match but will ultimately be feeling like all of us: frustrated and disappointed.
In the main, his second-ish team did a decent job but none of them really put the first-team regulars under any pressure that they may come for their spot.
Along with the mistakes, that is probably where the manager is most disappointed.
He will have wanted to win this trophy to try and get his reign off in a positive way but it isn't the end of the world to lose away to Spurs in a quarter final but the manner of the defeat will be painful.
Ratings
Bayindir - 3.5
Yoro - 6
Lindelof - 5
Martinez - 4
Mazraoui - 6
Ugarte - 7
Eriksen - 6.5
Dalot - 6.5
Bruno - 6
Antony - 5
Hojlund - 5
Evans - 6.5
Amad - 7.5 MOTM
Zirkzee - 6.5
Mainoo - 6
Garnacho - 5.5
Ruben Amorim - 6.5
Final Thoughts
I was actually asking for a game like that during my TikTok livestream ahead of this game. However, I wasn't asking for the game to go in that way, nor for us to lose of course.
But that really was such a poor game for anyone who is associated with either side. 4-3 sounds entertaining and to an extent, it was, if you enjoy comedies.
Both managers will look back on that game and think how were we this bad? Ange and Amorim will probably want to move on from this pretty quickly.
And that is perhaps the best thing for United because this was a night to forget. With Bournemouth on Sunday, we don't actually have time to dwell on this game whether we won it or not.
But even still, it was a bit of a buzzkill after all the positivity of winning the derby. Very United-like though. Win a big game like that, lose the next. These inconsistencies is what will kill Amorim just as it's done for his predecessors.
Unless he solves it soon.
Background Image: Man Utd crash out of the Carabao Cup after a 4-3 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur | Image via Manchester United official X (@ManUtd)