Manchester United get job done but Brighton’s blueprint is one to emulate

S emi-finals, famously, are not for playing but for winning. It doesn’t matter how you get to the final, just that you do so. Brighton will wonder how on earth they didn’t win a game they dominated for long periods, but it is Manchester United who will face Manchester City in the final on 3 June. They just have to hope spite and the desire to prevent City emulating their 1998-99 treble proves a better motivator than overcoming Roberto De Zerbi’s side.

This was not a good United performance, nothing like one. As the Wembley PA belted out “Glory, glory Man United” after the penalty shootout, it felt almost sarcastic. But it doesn’t matter. After the limp exit from the Europa League on Thursday, this felt perhaps a necessary victory. A second domestic final in the same season surely confirms that Erik ten Hag’s side is on the right track; that for the first time since Sir Alex Ferguson left, the club is pointing in the right direction.

This is a weary United, limping on to the season’s end, short on coherence and, increasingly it seemed, self-belief. But they still had enough grit to cling on. David de Gea may not fit the Ten Hag model, may be a player who will have to be phased out as United near their manager’s ideal, but he made a couple of exceptional saves. Aaron Wan‑Bissaka, similarly, probably isn’t the sort of ball‑playing full‑back Ten Hag would prefer, but he had an excellent day shutting down Kaoru Mitoma.

Injuries, of course, played their part. To be without three central defenders is unfortunate but the problem was less at the heart of the back four – although, of course, fears about what lay behind him may have had an impact on Casemiro’s positioning, which in turn affects everything else – and more in the