Manchester U 2 Chelsea 2

Sir Alex Ferguson

Man­chester Uni­ted 2 Chel­sea 2, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish FA Cup Quart­er-Fi­nal, Mar­ch 10, 2013. Ac­cord­ing to Sir Al­ex Fer­guson, Man­chester Uni­ted were for­tu­nate to still be in the FA Cup af­ter a 2-2 draw ag­ainst Chel­sea. Uni­ted were lead­ing com­fort­ably by 2-0 at the break but Ra­fael Benitez´s dis­cip­lined si­de staged a come­back in the sec­ond ha­lf to earn a draw.

Man­chester Uni­ted dom­in­ated the open­ing skir­mishes of the mat­ch and the ho­me te­am were 2-0 up at the in­ter­val cour­tesy of a couple of early goals from Javi­er Her­nandez and Way­ne Roo­ney in the fifth and el­ev­enth min­utes re­spect­ively, but The Blues came back a lot strong­er af­ter the ha­lf-time re­fresh­ments to score twice in the sec­ond pe­riod thro­ugh goals from Eden Haz­ard and Ramires. In mit­ig­a­tion, tho­ugh, the ga­me ag­ainst Re­al Mad­rid earli­er in the week had ob­vi­ously taken its toll. Sir Al­ex Fer­guson: “Man­chester Uni­ted are lucky to still be in the FA Cup. Our two full backs, Ra­fael da Silva and Pat­rice Ev­ra, were knackered and the two centre mid­field play­ers tired badly and we kept giv­ing the ball away. I de­tec­ted there were some signs of tired­ness. You have to un­der­stand the prob­lem is the emo­tion and in­tens­ity of Tues­day night had taken its toll on one or two of the play­ers. Un­der­stand­ably I have no prob­lems wi­th that part but it made it a long day for Man­chester Uni­ted and Chel­sea were by far the bet­ter si­de in the sec­ond ha­lf.” Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Ra­fael, Rio Fer­dinand, Jon­ny Evans, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Tom Clev­er­ley, Mi­chael Car­rick, Shinji Ka­gawa, Nani, Javi­er Her­nandez, Way­ne Roo­ney. Sub­stitutes: Dan­ny Wel­beck, Va­lencia, Robin van Per­sie, An­der­son, Ne­manja Vid­ic, Ash­ley Young, Ben Amos. Chel­sea Te­am: Petr Cech, Ash­ley Cole, Da­vid Luiz, Ga­ry Ca­hill, Cesar Azpilicueta, Ramires, Frank Lam­pard, Ju­an Ma­ta, Oscar, Vic­tor Moses, Demba Ba. Sub­stitutes: John Obi Mikel, Fer­nando Torres, Eden Haz­ard, Bran­islav Ivan­ovic, John Terry, Ry­an Ber­trand, Ross Turnbull.

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