Manchester United vs Leicester: Score and latest updates from FA Cup

Ruud van Nistelrooy slammed an “unthinkable and unacceptable” blunder after Harry Maguire scored a controversial winner as Manchester United scraped into the FA Cup fifth round. Maguire was in a clear offside position before heading home Bruno Fernandes’s 93rd-minute free-kick as United came from behind to beat Leicester City 2-1 at Old Trafford. With VAR not in use until the next round of the competition to ensure the technology is available at all stadia, Maguire’s goal was allowed to stand, with referee Michael Salisbury and his officials Matthew Wilkes and Marc Perry failing to spot Maguire was offside.

“We are not defeated in Fergie time, we are defeated in offside time,” Van Nistelrooy said after the former United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was seen celebrating in the stands. “It was not a matter of VAR. VAR you have in a couple centimetres, a couple of inches, this was half a metre [offside]. That was a hard one to take because the team deserves to draw in the end. Then extra-time, stay in the game, you never know what happens.

“One, you can’t turn it back so we have to live with it. Two, we are all humans and make mistakes but at this level, that’s not good enough. “That’s it and for me, that’s enough, to be sad about it. We’re gutted when you prepare the whole week for this game and put in a performance like that and it’s been decided on a clear and obvious mistake … that’s unthinkable and unacceptable at this level. Decisions like these in our level are hard to swallow.”.

United were behind to Bobby De Cordova-Reid’s goal before Alejandro Garnacho’s introduction at half-time turned the game. Joshua Zirkzee equalised before Maguire’s contentious winner,. Ruben Amorim, the United head coach, admitted his side had got lucky. “We need a lot of things that are nothing to do with luck, that have to do with quality of the work – we need to improve every detail of the game, energy, my work with them has to be so much better,” he said.

“But sometimes you need a little bit of luck and today we had. It’s not luck because with VAR it was not a goal and I think it’s important to have it because it’s fair. It’s really hard to lose one game in the last minute with an offside play, but sometimes we deserve a little bit of luck. “We had to believe until the end but this game has nothing to do with the time of Fergie. I think the performance, we have to do so much better with the ball, without the ball.”.

Roy Keane claimed United “got out of jail” and slammed the failure to spot Maguire was offside. “They rode their luck,” the former United captain said. “The linesman has to see it [Maguire being offside]. United got out of jail tonight. “Sometimes the big clubs get criticism of decisions going for them and that was an example of that. Such another bad decision. You have to get those big decisions right and that is a shocking mistake.”.

Marcus Rashford may have left for Aston Villa and Antony was packed off to Real Betis but, whatever frustration Manchester United fans feel about the lack of replacements for that pair in the winter window, they will also know it could have been a whole lot worse. Alejandro Garnacho’s future was uncertain for weeks as Napoli and Chelsea both tested United’s resolve over their young Argentina winger and one could only have imagined the reaction had the club actually cashed in their chips.

There are very few players in this United squad who gets bums off seats and talk to the club’s storied history of flying wingers prepared to attack their full-back and enthral and excite. Garnacho does all those things and, while he is far from the finished product at 20 and has already fallen foul of his manager Ruben Amorim at times, it is hard to believe this one-paced, pedestrian United side would be better off by selling such a burgeoning talent.

There is certainly some doubt about whether they would have got back into this game, let alone gone on to win it, but for the introduction of Garnacho from the bench at half-time. Harry Maguire was in a clear offside position before heading home Bruno Fernandes’s free-kick to win the game deep into stoppage time, a huge slice of a good fortune for United who should be grateful VAR is not operational until the next round of the FA Cup. Ruud van Nistelrooy, the Leicester City manager, was right to be furious about it and Roy Keane had a point when he said United “got out of jail”.

No one, though, should downplay the impact of Garnacho, who played an integral role in the equaliser scored by another substitute, Joshua Zirkzee, and whose willingness to run at – and in behind – Leicester’s defence ensured the second half was played to an entirely different soundtrack from the first. United were going nowhere fast before Garnacho’s arrival turned the game on its head and gave his side the urgency, pace and impetus they had been so badly lacking, following a listless first period in which they found themselves behind for the seventh time in the last eight home games and were booed off.