Harry Maguire revels in red mist to bend chaotic tie Manchester United’s way | Barney Ronay
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Centre-back looks at home in Amorim’s defensive setup and showed leadership in moments of madness at Arsenal. It was always going to end like this, a fact that became essentially unavoidable with the sight of Joshua Zirkzee rotating his arms wildly towards the away end before the penalty shootout at the end of this 1-1 FA Cup third-round draw, shorts hitched up, chalk down one leg, transformed in that moment into Warrior-Zirkzee.
![[Ruben Amorim appeals on the touchline.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d88f309558ec5df94b6c5264f19e7385c895dbd2/0_256_3841_2305/master/3841.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
From that point it also seemed inevitable Kai Havertz, who had earlier fallen over a pocket of air to win a potentially game-turning penalty, would now produce the key miss, a spot-kick so weak he could have run after it, caught up, taken it back and had another go.
And, of course, Zirkzee got to score the winning penalty for Manchester United, side-footing the ball into the empty half of the goal, then joyously machine gunning the crowd in celebration, before remembering that he probably shouldn’t do that. Zirkzee is an odd footballer, a mooching, bovine figure, clever with the ball, perhaps lacking a certain viciousness. But this was a wonderful moment of personal catharsis after some difficult recent times.
But then, this was a game that always seemed to carry a sense of a redemption arc about it. The job for Ruben Amorim has always been to take bad things and make them good, banish ghosts, flush out that deep United voodoo. A 10-man shootout win on a freezing Sunday in front of a Cup-sized away end felt like a pretty good staging post along that road.
