The truth is that while United narrowly defeated Aston Villa to set up a fourth-round tie at home to Championship club Middlesbrough they were fortunate to do so.
Manchester United through to FA Cup fourth round
This year Manchester United might be having the only hope in the FA cup this season. This was a big win for them, arguably the biggest since Ralf Rangnick arrived as interim manager, although it was not accompanied by a big performance.
McTominay Celebrating goal
Aston Villa had chances and were undoubtedly the better, more aggressive team and also left with a burning grievance after an apparent equalising goal early in the second-half, was ruled out following a controversial Var intervention.
The Var Darren England seemed to check whether Ings was offside, then whether Ollie Watkins was offside, then whether Ings had handled the ball before finally settling on the verdict that Jacob Ramsey was offside and that he had then made himself ‘active’ by blocking off Edinson Cavani from reaching a free-kick which he would never have got to.
Raphael Varane thinks it was the 'right decision' for VAR to chalk off Aston Villa's goal against Manchester United.
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United beat Villa 1-0 on Monday night in the FA Cup, but it was far from a convincing performance for Ralf Rangnick's side.
The Reds took the lead within 10 minutes through Scott McTominay's header after an excellent searching cross from Fred, but Villa responded well to that early setback and began to create openings aplenty, regularly testing David de Gea in between the sticks.
Villa would find a way past De Gea in the second half when Danny Ings poked home but the goal was disallowed by VAR.
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