Manchester United is into the FA Cup quarterfinals for a seventh straight season. Bournemouth got there for only the second time in its 122-year history.
Scott McTominay’s 97th-minute strike earned United a 1-0 win over West Ham in a lackluster fifth-round match that required extra time at snowy Old Trafford on Tuesday.
In another demonstration of his growing assuredness in front of goal, the midfielder
“Scott has really developed that part of his game this season,” United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said. "We let him go into the box more often, unleash him. He's a very good striker of the ball, very clinical.
“He was a forward in his younger days and you can see the authority when he gets a chance to finish.”
United, a 12-time winner of the FA Cup, is accustomed to going deep in cup competitions under Solskjaer over the past year but the semifinals have been the ceiling, with the team losing in the last four in the League Cup (twice), the FA Cup and the Europa League.
Along with the Europa League, the FA Cup looks to be United’s best chance of collecting its first piece of silverware since 2017 after falling five points behind Manchester City in the Premier League title race. City also has a game in hand.
West Ham, led by former Man United manager David Moyes, frustrated Solskjaer’s side with a disciplined defensive performance but wasn’t helped by losing three players — Angelo Ogbonna (ankle), his replacement Issa Diop (head), and Andriy Yarmolenko (knee) — to injury by the 54th minute. The team was already without its only senior striker, Michail Antonio, whose minutes were being managed by Moyes after a recent injury.
Diop was replaced by Ryan Fredericks at halftime following a clash of heads with Anthony Martial in the 37th, making it the first concussion substitute in English soccer. In a rule introduced on a trial basis for this season, teams are allowed to use a maximum of two concussion subs from the fifth round onward.
It is also being trialed in the Premier League.
“We think he's fine and I still think he's fine,” Moyes said. “But he had a bump on his head at halftime, and I chose to take no risks and took him off.”
64-YEAR WAIT ENDS
Second-division Bournemouth beat Burnley 2-0 and is in quarterfinals of the world’s oldest club knockout competition for the first time since the 1956-57 season.
Goals by Sam Surridge and Junior Stanislas, from the penalty spot, saw off a depleted Burnley side at Turf Moor.
Burnley was looking to advance to the quarterfinals for the first time since the 2002-03 season, but manager Sean Dyche chose to rest his key players — including the entire first-choice defense and goalkeeper Nick Pope — with his team battling to avoid relegation in the Premier League.
It later emerged that Burnley came within minutes of potentially getting disqualified from the competition after Dyche initially named Erik Pieters in his starting lineup — despite the left back being suspended for the game after collecting yellow cards in each of the previous two rounds.
Burnley was alerted to its error by Bournemouth officials just before kickoff and replaced Pieters with Anthony Driscoll-Glennon.
“It was very gentlemanly of them,” Dyche said.
Bournemouth, which was relegated from the top flight last season, was being managed on an interim basis by former Tottenham and Real Madrid defender Jonathan Woodgate following the recent departure of Jason Tindall.
The remaining six matches in the last 16 take place over Wednesday and Thursday.
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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80
