Cambridge Utd 0 Man Utd 0

Cam­bridge Uni­ted 0 Man­chester Uni­ted 0, Ab­bey Sta­dium, FA Cup Fourth Ro­und, Jan­uary 23, 2015. Man­chester Uni­ted boss Louis van Gaal could on­ly sit and watch as his play­ers wasted a num­ber of de­cent goal scor­ing op­por­tun­it­ies dur­ing a goal­less draw wi­th Cam­bridge Uni­ted in the FA Cup Fourth Ro­und. In mit­ig­a­tion, tho­ugh, Cam­bridge shot stop­per Chris Dunn had an ex­cel­lent day be­tween the sticks and with­stood every­thing thrown at him.

El­ev­en times FA Cup win­ners Man­chester Uni­ted had com­fort­ably de­feated Lea­gue One si­de Yeovil To­wn 2-0 at Huish Park Sta­dium in the FA Cup Third Ro­und thro­ugh sec­ond ha­lf goals from An­der Her­rera and An­gel Di Mar­ia and Louis van Gaal´s men were over­whelm­ing fa­vour­ites to be­at Lea­gue Two out­fit Cam­bridge Uni­ted who had ma­naged to edge out John Still´s Luton To­wn by a 2-1 score at Ab­bey Sta­dium in the pre­vi­ous ro­und thanks to a goal each from Ry­an Don­ald­son and Rob­bie Simp­son in the 27th and 66th min­utes of the clash re­spect­ively. The on­ly time Man­chester Uni­ted and Cam­bridge Uni­ted had played ag­ainst each oth­er was in the 1991-92 sea­son when the two te­ams were paired in the sec­ond ro­und of the Lea­gue Cup. The Old Traf­ford club won the fir­st leg 3-0 at ho­me cour­tesy of a fir­st ha­lf goal from Ry­an Gig­gs and sec­ond ha­lf goals from Bri­an Mc­Clair and Ste­ve Bru­ce, whi­le the sec­ond leg at Ab­bey Sta­dium ended wi­th a 1-1 draw wi­th Di­on Dub­lin scor­ing a late equal­iser for Cam­bridge Uni­ted af­ter Choccy had giv­en the vis­it­ors an early lead. Un­for­tu­nately, for this fix­ture, Man­chester Uni­ted were with­out the ser­vices of key play­ers Jon­ny Evans, Chris Small­ing, and Ash­ley Young be­cause of dif­fer­ent in­jury prob­lems, but stri­ker Robin van Per­sie and full backs Lu­ke Shaw and Ra­fael da Silva were back af­ter mis­sing the 2-0 vic­tory ag­ainst Queens Park Ran­gers at Shepherd´s Bush in the pre­vi­ous Pre­mier Lea­gue Ro­und. Cam­bridge Uni­ted, for their part, had to make do with­out the tri­um­vir­ate of Jor­dan Chiedozie, Johnny Hunt, and Mat­teo Lan­zoni, who were Cup tied for the club.

Louis van Gaal was adam­ant that his Man­chester Uni­ted te­am would not un­der­es­tim­ate their op­pon­ents when they played Cam­bridge Uni­ted in the FA Cup Fourth Ro­und on the 23rd of Jan­uary 2015. But ag­ainst the odds, Rich­ard Money´s boys earned them­selves a re­play at Old Traf­ford af­ter a hard fou­ght 0-0 draw ag­ainst the Pre­mier Lea­gue gi­ants in front of a bump­er crowd at Ab­bey Sta­dium. And al­though Van Gaal´s Uni­ted con­trolled the pos­ses­sion of the ball from the very be­gin­ning, The U´s nev­er­the­less had their mo­ments in the fir­st ha­lf of the tie and loc­al born de­fender Joshua Coulson al­most put the hosts  in­to the lead at the ha­lf-hour ma­rk when his head­er landed on the roof of the net. Fol­low­ing the ha­lf-time break, Man­chester Uni­ted con­tin­ued their dom­in­a­tion, but the highly dis­cip­lined and well or­gan­ised Cam­bridge Uni­ted de­fence held the vis­it­ing si­de at bay. The Reds came clo­se to scor­ing dur­ing the clos­ing sta­ges of the fix­ture, how­ever, as Bel­gi­um in­ter­na­tion­al Ad­nan Januzaj and for­mer Re­al Mad­rid mid­fielder An­gel Di Mar­ia for­ced ho­me goal­keeper Chris Dunn in­to a mag­ni­fi­cent double save wi­th a couple of min­utes re­maining on the watch of mat­ch of­fi­cial Chris Foy. Cam­bridge Uni­ted Te­am: Chris Dunn, Joshua Coulson, Rich­ard Tait, Greg Tay­lor, Mi­chael Nel­son, Tom Cham­pi­on, Ry­an Don­ald­son, Liam Hug­hes, Camer­on McGee­han, Sul­lay Kaikai, Tom El­li­ott. Sub­stitutes: Ian Miller, Ry­an Bird, Domin­ic Ball, Lu­ke Chad­wick, Har­ris­on Dunk, Rob­bie Simp­son, Will Nor­ris. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Da­ley Bli­nd, An­tonio Va­lencia, Phil Jones, Mar­cos Rojo, Mi­chael Car­rick, An­gel Di Mar­ia, Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini, Ra­damel Fal­cao, Ad­nan Januzaj, Ja­mes Wil­son. Sub­stitutes: An­der Her­rera, Lu­ke Shaw, Pad­dy McNair, Ra­fael da Silva, Dar­ren Fletch­er, Robin van Per­sie, Víct­or Valdes.

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