5 days Ago
Twenty-two minutes into Manchester United’s 2-0 FA Cup semi-final win against Manchester City on Sunday, the camera operators would have done well to shift to split screen. On the right, midfielder Grace Clinton is surrounded by team-mates, having doubled United’s lead, the familiar scent of Wembley Stadium grass wafting around the squad for a third successive season. Advertisement On the left, City forward Mary Fowler is hobbling around the opposite corner flag, her right knee bandaged, medical staff flanking either side and storm clouds collecting above.
As an evocative metaphor for the direction of the two rival seasons, this was cruel in its clarity: one Manchester team amid a season blighted by injury, while the other soars higher. United are seven points clear of City, boast 17 clean sheets across all competitions, have Champions League qualification in sight, and secured a new two-year deal for manager Marc Skinner . Meanwhile, City are licking their wounds both physically and in their results.
They are six key players down following Fowler’s knee injury, which saw her leave the match in the 25th minute. They are headed toward the end of another season without a trophy and need a small miracle for European qualification. Interim manager Nick Cushing is in the dugout, having replaced manager Gareth Taylor in the club’s attempt at silverware in the Women’s League Cup final, only to discover every salvation project has its limits.
Rewind one year and this reality would seem like an odd attempt at an optical illusion. In March 2024, City were top of the Women’s Super League (WSL), consigning United to a comfortable 3-1 league defeat. United, while on their way to historic FA Cup glory, were galumphing towards a fifth-placed finish.
Skinner’s name was becoming a kind of obscenity in certain pockets of the terraces. United Women were weeks away from being removed from their £10million ($12.7m) training facilities and into portable cabins to accommodate the men’s senior team while £50m renovations were carried out on Carrington.
Weeks away from waving goodbye to goalkeeper Mary Earps to Paris Saint-Germain, forward Lucia Garcia to C.F. Monterrey, club captain Katie Zelem to Angel City, and new minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe admitting in a Bloomberg interview that focus on the men’s first team had prevented him from going into detail with the women’s side.
Advertisement “It’s the hurt that drives you forward,” Skinner assessed after Sunday’s victory regarding the shift in fortunes. “Even winning the FA Cup last season, we dipped in the league. We’ve got to learn from that.
The team have done that fantastically well.” Pain and education are the apparent secret ingredients to United’s success and while an underlying murmur of inquisition still follows Skinner and United’s hierarchy, something intangible and powerful has grown between the United players over the course of 12 months that could ultimately be season-defining. “I’ve heard a lot of the things that have been said about what’s happened off the pitch, but what you can see there is a team that have really pulled together, really galvanised and fight for each other,” City interim manager Cushing said of his opponents.
“There’s a lot of conversation nowadays about the beautiful side of the game, systems and tactics, but you’ve got to win tackles and duels. You’ve got to make sure you compete. “(United) competed harder than us today.
For us, the question why is what we’ve got to work out.” City’s pre-match hype video was a ‘Where’s Waldo’ for uninjured players. No Aoba Fujino, Khadija “Bunny” Shaw, Jill Roord, Vivianne Miedema, Lauren Hemp or Alex Greenwood.
Naomi Layzell, the 21-year-old who only just returned from a four-month ankle injury, replaced Fowler like a casualty carousel. “We might just not have the toughness and the desire to go attack the game however it looks,” Cushing told media at full-time, refusing to accept caveats of injury despite its merits. City’s injury woes are part misfortune and part miscalculation.
Taylor preferred working with a small squad, a decision that has proven more costly than beneficial. Fowler’s departure on Sunday meant City were without their three top goalscorers in the WSL. As City toiled to make the most of their chances in the final third, the trio’s absence, along with that of winger Chloe Kelly, who was loaned to Arsenal in January after falling out with Taylor, was inescapable.
Advertisement “The injury crisis needs to be examined, 100 per cent,” Cushing said. “They can’t all be bad luck, but they can’t all be down to poor practice. You have to look at everything.
You have to look at why we’re sitting fourth in the league, why we’ve not won a trophy, why we’ve not got our best players.” United arrived at the Joie Stadium with a game plan and executed it flawlessly. They started the match with ferocity and purpose and reaped the rewards as forward Celin Bizet and Clinton produced two moments of quality.
Just under 65 per cent of United’s WSL goals have arrived before half-time. They are yet to concede a goal in the first 15 minutes of a league game this term. Unlike their second-half display in the League Cup quarter-final against City earlier this season, where they relinquished control and ultimately the result, United did not yield.
It is another lesson learned as United pursue their short-term ambitions of FA Cup glory and Champions League qualification, and a long-term ambition of a WSL title by 2028. Skinner maintained pre-match that experiences such as Sunday are priceless in this pursuit. Last year, United won the FA Cup final but seemingly sacrificed the league and Europe.
The year prior, United lost the FA Cup and WSL by a goal and two points to Chelsea. This year, United’s balance is better, albeit enough time persists for fortunes to turn. Sunday represented the first of six remaining litmus tests before the season’s end.
Crucial WSL matches against West Ham United, Chelsea, City and Arsenal stand between United and Europe. There is an FA Cup final rematch to navigate against Chelsea, a team seemingly impenetrable from all sides. United’s season, while admirable in its tenacity and grit on the pitch, has ultimately been driven by over-performance at both ends of the pitch.
Perhaps the most priceless lesson United must glean in their many pursuits is one City learned this season: the need to invest wisely in a squad to compete on all fronts and see the margins at play for what they are. Advertisement “I know people question (the club’s backing of the women’s team),” Skinner said. “That’s their prerogative, trying to start fires that are not actually fires.
Omar (Berrada, United chief executive) and Colette (Roche, chief operating officer) were here today, they’re fully behind what we’re doing. “We’re not going to do what other teams have done, which is just throw a whole lot of cash up, even though I’d love that. That’s a challenge I’ve accepted.
If we work hard enough and qualify for the Champions League, then we need to recruit properly.” He added: “We live in a world that is constantly reinforced by negative. I don’t want to live in that world.
I want to make sure that we celebrate the moments that we then reinforce, that we get armoured from it, and push forward.” (Top photo: Jan Kruger / Getty Images).
