THE INDIE
If only he had played his first team. Steve Coppell, that is. One suspects that, given the opportunity, the Reading manager would almost have conceded this tie before the game. Not out of fear, but priorities. His is the Premiership and, though he may not admit it, Europe.
Yet by the end even the normally taciturn Reading manager was exhorting his men to achieve the unthinkable. They didn't, quite, but on an evening when Sir Alex Ferguson's team appeared to have the Champions' League on their mind the visitors comfortably did enough to walk away with pride, and a deserved replay.
Coppell referred to his seven alterations from last week's defeat of Aston Villa as commitment to his fringe players. One could admire that stance, even if the uncommitted here, and watching on TV, may have viewed it as foolhardy in the extreme, if not sheer impudence, given the power of yesterday's opponents. Sending a second team out to defeat two Championship sides is one thing; it is quite another to do the same against the champions-elect.
His chairman, John Madejski, had weighed in, claiming that Reading have two first teams, both equal. Which suggests that for all his significant contribution to the Royals' ascent to these giddy heights, the art lover and benefactor should stick to appreciating his Degas rather than his Doyles.
In the event, Coppell was astute enough to deploy three of his key players, in Nicky Shorey, Steve Sidwell and Ivar Ingimarsson, in a 5-4-1 formation, with the strength of Leroy Lita, Glenn Little and Steve Hunt on the bench.
In the first half, it produced the desired effect: negating United's threat. With the exception of Michael Carrick's goal, that first period was played frequently in a cathedral silence. Rarely can the atmosphere have been so low-key. It was as if the mutual respect between the managers had infected their players.
United, who play Lille on Tuesday, were also far from full- strength. They were without the suspended Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville, while Paul Scholes and Patrivce Evra started on the bench. It was 35 minutes before a weak effort by Saha finally brought goalkeeper Adam Federici into action. Before that, Ji-Sung Park twice turned the ball over the bar.
Reading forced two early corners and played the ball around precisely enough, but without looking as though they would penetrate the home rearguard. Any relief they felt at the absence of Rooney was tempered by their fear of the damage Cristiano Ronaldo could inflict. And it was the Portuguese who found Carrick, whose cross reached Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, but the Norwegian failed to capitalise. Saha summed up United's indifferent play when he drove wide from an angle.
At least Solskjaer had the ball in the net after a Reading clearance had ricocheted to him, but he was adjudged offside.
The Reading defender Ulises De La Cruz spurned the best chance of the half up until then when he was through, but managed only to find the side netting. He was made to rue that lost opportunity when, in added time, Ronaldo, who had been generally subdued, knocked the ball wide to Carrick, and the England midfielder placed a splendid low drive wide of Federici.
THE OBSERVER
Neither team wanted a replay, so that's exactly what they got. The biggest surprise, apart from the fact that Reading have strength in depth as well as sixth place in the Premiership, was that an old-fashioned Cup tie emerged after all. There is no danger of Manchester United underestimating Reading at the Madejski, especially if they bring back Leroy Lita.
As promised, Reading left out seven first-team players; United omitted six, not including the suspended Wayne Rooney. Steve Coppell started it, though Sir Alex Ferguson sympathised, arguing that you had actually to win the FA Cup to gain any glory, while qualifying for the Uefa Cup might be a more realistic ambition. That sounds fair enough, if not exactly Roy of the Rovers, though there were empty seats in the United areas as well as at the Reading end and it was a pity the meeting of the Premiership's two form teams found both preoccupied with Europe.
'I think it's disrespectful when people question my team selection,' Coppell said afterwards, when his side had done him proud. 'That wasn't a weak team. I picked a similar side in the last round and I intend to do so again in the replay. We'll just have to see what happens.'
At least the changes did not deprive the crowd of a contest. United's reserves are all pretty good and Reading's aren't bad, either. Despite playing Dave Kitson on his own up front, Reading managed to get forward in numbers early on, though like United they looked a little lightweight in the goalscoring department. The first half-hour passed without any attempts on goal worthy of the name. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer brought a save from Adam Federici after just 10 minutes, but the ball came late to the striker and he did not connect with his usual clout; a run by Louis Saha left Brynjar Gunnarsson floundering, only to end with a wayward drive; Cristiano Ronaldo comically wasted a free-kick; and when Saha set up Park Ji...#8209;Sung, the shot threatened a corner flag rather than goal.
Apart from a couple of unconvincing attempts by Ulises de la Cruz and Nicky Shorey, Reading's attacking endeavours had more or less fizzled out by the time United took the lead. After Solskjaer had seen a goal disallowed a tad harshly for offside, and Park and Saha had overelaborated for about the eighth time, the sight of Paul Scholes and Henrik Larsson warming up seemed to do the trick. Ronaldo appeared to ask a lot of Michael Carrick when he ran into trouble and invited him to shoot from almost 30 yards, but Carrick struck the ball low and true, beating Federici with almost the last kick of the half.
Once in front, United spent too much time pumping long balls in the direction of front players who struggled to control them. Without Scholes and Ryan Giggs, there was little of their incisive short passing game, though after an hour Park did manage to release Ronaldo with a defence-splitting through ball of which Scholes would have been proud. Ronaldo had only Federici to beat, but contrived to miss the target, as he did four minutes later when Solskjaer gave him a chance to shoot.
None of this profligacy looked likely to matter while Reading's only attempt on goal of the second half was a 40-yard cross-cum-shot from Seol Ki-Hyeon that briefly had Tomasz Kuszczak unsure of his bearings, though urgency soon returned when Gunnarsson nodded in John Oster's corner. United were caught unawares, first by Reading sneaking up the field, then by Gunnarsson finding space at the edge of the area to loop a well placed header over several defenders and Kuszczak's despairing dive. 'It was a bad goal to concede,' Ferguson admitted. 'They only had five players in the area to our 10, but football can always bite you like that. We had enough chances to kill the game, but we didn't take them so we can't complain.'
THE SUNDAY TIMES
Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger have spent a decade at loggerheads but suddenly there is another auld alliance between Scotland and France. First, on Friday, Ferguson chided reporters who were seeking to make the Arsenal manager a scapegoat for leading the influx of foreign players into English football.
Yesterday would have had the Manchester United manager nodding in agreement with Wenger's suggestions FA Cup replays should be scrapped. A return match at the Madjeski Stadium is no more welcome to United than a replay at Ewood Park for Arsenal. But Ferguson's players had only themselves to blame. They had sufficient opportunities to win this tie on the day. Michael Carrick scored spectacularly from distance but easier chances were missed. Indeed it was Reading, late on, who came closest to providing a winner, Seol Ki-Hyeon crossing for Nicky Shorey to head at goal only for Wes Brown to clear off the line.
Until showing some late ambition Reading had few attacks and fewer efforts on goal but, as they have done in the Premiership all season, made the most of modest resources. Trailing 1-0 midway through the second half a corner provided them with a rare attacking platform and when John Oster swung the ball towards the penalty spot, an unlikely predator pounced. Brynjar Gunnarsson, a journeyman Icelandic defender, suddenly became deadly planting a powerful header in off the underside of the bar from 15 yards.
Reading manager Steve Coppell faced opprobrium for announcing he would field a side sprinkled with reserves. There was snobbery, surely, about such criticism. It is nowadays accepted when big clubs used weakened teams in cup competitions: why should lesser lights, such as Reading, who have league agendas and squad concerns of their own to think about, be different? As it was United (six) made a similar number of changes to their opponents (seven).
Perhaps inevitably in the first period, second string versus second string produced much second rate fare. With their five-man defence and four-man midfield Reading erected barricades. They were not wholly negative, getting their full-backs and wide midfielders upfield in support of Dave Kitson when they counter-attacked, but apart from an early seam of corners and one thrust in which Ulises De la Cruz broke into the box to take Oster's pass and shoot into the side netting, the problems they presented to United were of the obdurate sort.
Carrick and Darren Fletcher tried to be delicate in their passing but the eight or nine blue shirts in their way usually proved too many to penetrate, and when United did squeeze the ball to a forward the tackling of Reading's three centre-backs was staunch. United needed some individualism to crack Coppell's tough nuts and, until Cristiano Ronaldo eventually stepped forward, Louis Saha did his best to provide it. He burst from the halfway-line past three opponents only, off balance, to strike his shot into the stand. On another attack, set up when Nemanja Vidic won a typically courageous header, Brown poked a pass inside to Saha who muscled into Reading's box before checking and playing a clever cut back to Ji-Sung Park who, seemingly intent for most of the afternoon in proving his recent goalscoring to be an aberration, missed with a miserable slice.
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
United got what they didn't want, a replay. It is hard to resist a jibe of "serves you right", but both clubs fielded weakened teams against the spirit of everything the FA Cup used to represent. Any salute to Reading's tenacity and comradeship is muted in this corner.
For more than a hundred years the old trophy was a thing of the richest romance. Whole towns caught the fever. Teams travelled along roads that promised the ultimate sporting joy at the Wembley of the Twin Towers.
Now the competition is diminished. Wembley, when it is completed, will stand as a monument to wealth and modernity. There was no sign of a throwback to the glory days here as the managers here played half strength teams as if the fifth round was no more than a distraction.
Steve Coppell made seven changes, Sir Alex Ferguson six with a passing nod at the cup's former prestige. The Premiership and European football have both become much bigger prizes these days unless you belong to the lower leagues where ambition still wears a smile.
There will be many nodding in agreement at the words of Sir Tom Finney, the Preston and England legend whose team play Manchester City today. He says: "There have been managers saying openly that the Cup is not what it used to be. It shows a lack of respect and a lack of understanding of what this country's football is about. They field weak teams and it's as if they don't want to try."
Coppell had his own strident response when he said: "It is disrespectful when people question my team selection. I played more or less the same team in the last round. I can't understand people questioning it."
When Michael Carrick drove United into the lead from 25 yards in the minute added on at the end of the first half the noise that erupted from the stands was more the sound of relief than celebration.
Until then there was more chance of the thousands falling asleep that rising from the torpor of a match that lacked any semblance of passion for all the striving of those not normally in their first teams.
In the end Reading earned their draw. Those chosen by Coppell had the desire and for that they deserve admiration as they constantly thwarted United. They managed that for 45 minutes before Carrick's strike, mainly with some powerful block tackling, notably by Andre Bikey and three times United's Korean, Ji-Sung Park, found himself stopped by lunging defenders although twice, when put in by flicks from Louis Saha, he should have done better than sky the ball over the top.
Ronaldo, too, squandered chances but it was his lay-off that gave Carrick his opportunity.
Reading deserve some credit for the way they went about their job, again responding in full to the demands of their manager who is much admired by Ferguson and played 373 matches for United, scoring 70 goals before retiring at the age of 28 with a knee injury.