Manchester United quest for Women's FA Cup glory faces 'difficult' Brighton hurdle

On Saturday, Manchester United host Brighton and Hove Albion in the Vitality Women’s FA Cup semi-final, where both teams are hitting new heights, still standing at the latter end of the tournament. While United manager Marc Skinner has experience of an FA Cup final, once before in the 2017-18 season with Birmingham, he strictly prohibits his side from thinking too far ahead.

Despite the Reds sitting top of the league table and the Seagulls bottom, the magic of the FA Cup cannot be denied and Skinner is under no illusion that another management change at Brighton could throw a spanner in the works. It's also United's first time making it this far in the competition in their history.

He said: “We’re not at the final and for us to think of anything other than the very difficult game that we have with a new manager and whatever influence Mel [Phillips] can have.

“We would love to get to a final and to compete in a final and win finals going forwards but we’ve got a very difficult task ahead of us and the mentality from my group is that we go and hunt any opponent that stands in the way of us and that's the mentality I want us to have from now until the end of the year.

“I genuinely mean that. I want us to turn up our heat on every opponent knowing that the one we will face this weekend, Brighton specifically, will be very very difficult to play against so we'd better be ready for that.”

Before the international break, United put four past Brighton in their league campaign, Leah Galton opened the score within 12 minutes and doubled the lead just past the hour mark. Rachel Williams made it three and the fourth came a minute later from Lucia Garcia.

While the clubs face each other with back-to-back fixtures, Skinner