Manchester United can move to within two wins of back-to-back FA Cup triumphs on Monday, but former club captain Gary Neville has suggested defeat to Chelsea wouldn’t be the end of the world.
United can join Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham or Millwall in the semi-finals with victory over the Blues, but Neville can see them sacrificing the game to improve their chances of qualifying for next season’s Champions League.
José Mourinho’s team will be without top scorer Zlatan Ibrahimović on Monday evening, with the striker beginning a three-match ban for violent conduct, and Neville seems to think other competitions could quickly become a priority.
Ibrahimovic and Bournemouth’s Tyrone Mings were both handed bans for off-the-ball incidents (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
“The FA Cup could be a competition that United sacrifice because they have to try and get into the Champions League,” Neville told Omnisport.
“It will be a big challenge mentally on Monday.
“It might be the one, at this moment in time, that they can sacrifice in terms of trying not to complicate the fixture congestion any more.”
United currently sit in sixth place in the Premier League table, three points adrift of fourth-placed Liverpool with a game in hand.
They are also in pole position to progress to the quarter-finals of the Europa League, having drawn 1-1 in the away leg of their last-16 meeting with Rostov, and winning that competition would also offer them a route into next season’s Champions League.
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