Giggs and Nani charge in to save the day

Southampton 1 Manchester U 2:THAT THE FA Cup has lost much of its magic is a given these days, for reasons that are all too obvious. There were 4,000 empty seats at St Mary's on Saturday for what was billed as the tie of the fourth round, proving that you can't fool all the people all the time.

Resurgent Southampton, a good bet for promotion from League One, were looking forward to testing themselves against the best team in the country with excited anticipation until it leaked out they would be playing the third-best team in Manchester. Alex Ferguson said before the match that he would be sending “a strong side” – not his strongest, please note.

Fans are not fools and they picked up on the nuance: the reserves were coming. Paying good money to see the likes of Ferdinand, Vidic, Rooney and Berbatov was one thing, forking out the hard-earned for Smalling, Evans, Obertan and Gibson quite another, and the attendance was only marginally bigger than the 26,000 who witnessed Bournemouth’s visit in October.

United are not the only culprits when it comes to devaluing the competition, far from it. There are so many examples it seems invidious to single out one or two, but what the hell. In the last round, when Cardiff City played Stoke City, both managers said they were more interested in their respective league positions. Tony Pulis rested 10 players, Dave Jones left out six of his best and the result was the worst match this reporter has endured in 40 years as a professional observer.

Wolves’ Mick McCarthy and Blackpool’s Ian Holloway have both been fined recently for fielding below-strength league teams, why should the FA Cup be any different? Is the FA tacitly admitting what most of us have known all along – that the league they birthed, with its fabulous wealth, is the be-all-and-end-all in these increasingly venal times?

No doubt Ferguson will escape censure, as he always does, which gives rise to another question: it is the managers’ obligation to speak to the press after matches, so that their thoughts and opinions can be disseminated to the public? How come Ferguson alone gets away with never doing so (any quotes attributed to him come via United’s TV station), and how damaging to the game’s image would it be if all his peers decided to follow suit?

Despite, or maybe because of, the league leaders’ selection, the tie on Saturday was a good one. The team from the third tier were more than a match for their second-string opponents, and it was only the introduction of reinforcements, in the shape of Nani and Ryan Giggs, that turned an evenly-matched contest United’s way.

In the first half the Saints played the better, more cohesive football, a credit to their young manager, Nigel Adkins, who established an impressive reputation at Scunthorpe and is busily adding to it on the south coast. Much has been said about 17-year-old Alex Chamberlain, who has been dubbed the new Theo Walcott, but he was not a major influence here. Instead it was the Brazilian Guly Do Prado, formerly of Fiorentina, who caught the eye with a constructively energetic contribution in midfield. It was no more than Southampton deserved when Richard Chaplow drove firmly past United’s debutant goalkeeper, Anders Lindegaard, just before half time.

Ferguson admitted that he had “meddled too much” in using a diamond formation in midfield, with Paul Scholes at its base and Michael Owen the apex, and he corrected things in the second half, with what amounted to 4-2-4 after the substitutions.

The cavalry saved the day. Owen equalised with an expertly-directed header from eight yards, then Giggs set up Javier Hernandez for a real poacher’s finish. The Mexican cleverly used his body to shield the ball from Jose Fonte, losing his balance but managing to prod home his 11th goal of the season via an upright.

So United won and, reserves or not, Ferguson will argue that the end justified the means. No doubt his walking wounded will all be back against Aston Villa tomorrow.