United have not won the FA Cup since 2004 but Chris Smalling and Jesse Lingard also scored to ensure boss Louis van Gaal avoided a shock in Shropshire.
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Mata grabbed a goal with a wonderful free-kick on the stroke of half time and following the game, revealed that he was thrilled by United’s overall display on the night, even if it was against a League One outfit.
Van Gaal is now without 13 players after Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Will Keane limped off in Shropshire.
Manchester United’s FA Cup win over Shrewsbury came at a price, as Louis van Gaal’s injury woes continued. United haven’t been to Wembley in a while so the priority should be on trying to make sure that the team can do everything they can to get through the West Ham tie.
“It is in my opinion a big game because it’s a chance to qualify for the Champions League next season (by winning the Europa League)”, he said.
So that’s why we have learnt from Midtjylland and today we have scored, so that’s good.
“We are still in three competitions so we have to fight for all our chances”.
“It was the referee’s decision and they said it was not offside because they said as soon as I kicked the ball they come to be level with the defenders”.
“Then in March we will have a lot of players coming back and we will have a full selection and when we last had our full selection we were first in the Premier League”.
This was the first competitive match between the teams: United beat Shrewsbury 8-1 in a friendly in 2000.
“No one knows better than myself how I played in the game, and no one knows better than us as players how we felt in the game, if we have done good or bad”. A lucky goal for [Chris] Smalling I think, but a very good free-kick from [Juan] Mata. They can still mathematically finish within top four, and thus, the English giants need not hit the panic button.
“As a Man United fan I always hoped we wouldn’t go through a slump but it was inevitable”, said Beckham who played for United under Ferguson from 1995 to 2003 and helped them win six Premier League titles and the 1999 Champions League.
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“That was probably what we were disappointed about, that we never gave the fans a goal to cheer”, he said.
