FA Cup Fourth Round
Result: Arsenal 1-3 Manchester United
Date: 25 January 2019
Venue: Emirates Stadium
Manchester United continued their superb form under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer after registering a 3-1 win over Arsenal to advance to the fifth round of the FA Cup.
Unai Emery made three changes from their 2-0 win over Chelsea, as Petr Cech, Alex Iwobi and Ainsley Maitland-Niles replaced Bernd Leno, Matteo Guendouzi and Hector Bellerin. Out of favor star Mesut Ozil was named on the bench.
United goalkeeper David De Gea did not travel with the team and was replaced by Sergio Romero while forgotten stars Romelu Lukaku, Alexis Sanchez, together with Luke Shaw, Eric Bailly all got starts.
The Gunners were the most threatening side in the opening exchanges but they did not have the final product.
Emery was forced to make a substitution in the 21st minute as defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos went down with injury and was replaced by Shkodran Mustafi.
Sanchez broke the deadlock for United, scoring against his former team, in the 31st minute after beautifully rounding goalkeeper Cech to clip the ball to the far post.
Jesse Lingard made it 2-0 for Solskjaer's charges five minutes later after Lukaku beat the offside trap to set-up the Englishman, who finished with a cool right footed strike.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang pulled a goal back for the Gunners two minutes before the break with a left-footed strike at the back post after Aaron Ramsey created space deep into the box.
There was a long delay from the 56th minute to the 64th minute as centre-back Laurent Koscielny got a knock on his chin after challenging Lukaku and he was inevitably replaced by Guendouzi. Emery also brought on Ozil in the same moment for some fresh legs and Iwobi made way for the German midfielder.
Solskjaer made a double substitution 20 minutes before time, looking to keep their intensity in attack, as Sanchez and Lukaku made way for Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial.
Martial then made it 3-1 for the visitors eight minutes before time with a finish at the near post after Cech spilled Paul Pogba's long range strike into his path on a counter-attack.
There was still time for Arsenal to come back in the game as the fourth official added ten minutes of stoppage time but they lacked momentum and crashed out of the tournament in the end.
