Coventry City vs Manchester United LIVE: FA Cup semi-final team news, line-ups and more today

The FA have confirmed that Robert Jones will be the referee this weekend’s FA Cup semi-final. He will be assisted by Ian Hussin and Neil Davies, whilst Thomas Bramall will act as fourth official.

Elsewhere, at Stockley Park, Michael Salisbury will be the Video Assistant Referee, alongside Peter Bankes and Nick Greenhalgh.

It should come as no surprise that Manchester United have dominated this fixture over the years. The teams have face each other 83 times in competitive football with United coming out on top in over half of the meetings.

Here’s the head-to-head breakdown:

Coventry wins: 23 Draws: 17 Manchester United wins: 43

Last six results for the Red Devils:

1. Bournemouth 2-2 Manchester United
2. Manchester United 2-2 Liverpool
3. Chelsea 4-3 Manchester United
4. Brentford 1-1 Manchester United
5. Manchester United 4-3 Liverpool (FA Cup quarter-final)
6. Manchester United 2-0 Everton

Last six results for the Championship club:

1. Birmingham City 3-0 Coventry
2. Southampton 2-1 Coventry
3. Coventry 2-1 Leeds United
4. Coventry 1-2 Cardiff City
5. Huddersfield Town 1-3 Coventry
6. Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-3 Coventry (FA Cup quarter-final)

Back to today’s fixture and Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag spoke about what he is expecting from the game at Wembley.

“Of course, also we know the manager, a former United player, striker, his long period there, he’s doing a fantastic job there,” said Ten Hag referencing Mark Robins’ time as a player with the Red Devils.

“So, we know a lot about them. Of course they are dangerous, they are in the semi-final. It’s logical.

“Last season, they were that far away [gestures to a small gap] from being promoted to the Premier League. So they do a fantastic job over there.

“We have seen the game against Wolves, in the quarter-final, the mentality in the team is fabulous, so we have to play to our best levels.”

Replays had already been scrapped from the fifth round onwards but have now been ditched altogether from the first round proper, a joint statement from the FA and Premier League said.

The FA said the move had been made in agreement with the Premier League and “in light of changes to the calendar driven by the expanded Uefa competitions”.

The Champions League will become a 36-team competition next season with a new-look league format replacing the previous group stages. Premier League teams who are involved will now play eight rounds of games, running into January, to qualify for the knockout stages, an increase on the previous six.

Additionally, the FA Cup final will now be staged on the penultimate weekend of the Premier League season, rather than after, while all rounds will be played at the weekend. The fifth round of the FA Cup has been placed in midweek in the last five seasons.

The changes come as part of a new agreement between the FA and Premier League that will see the top flight put forward an extra £33m to grassroots football, on top of the £100m it says it already provides.

The scrapping of all FA Cup replays, as announced by the FA, may have been an inevitability but it doesn’t make their demise any less sad. There is no longer any surprise at the biggest entities within football getting their own way, with the ill effects on smaller clubs and communities simply seen as unimportant collateral damage, yet every greed-driven change still comes as a gut punch.

Replays had already been removed from the fifth round onwards and the announcement that the first four rounds of the ‘competition proper’ will follow suit from next season was lumped in with other format changes, including all rounds to be played on weekends, the fourth-round, fifth-round and quarter-final weekends to be exclusive of Premier League games and the FA Cup final itself to be moved before the end of the Premier League season.

The biggest clubs, despite having the biggest squads, detested FA Cup replays amid a hectic calendar. They whined loudly enough and for long enough that the authorities eventually buckled to their demands. The trade-off is the Premier League increasing funding to the football pyramid, with up to an additional £33m being earmarked for grassroots football. Yet the damage this move will do is far greater than the effect of any token payment.

The FA issued a statement on FA Cup replays on Friday, saying: “We understand the concerns expressed over the last 24 hours, and we will be sharing more details with clubs very shortly to explain the additional revenue opportunities in the early rounds.”

Coventry boss Mark Robins, whose side face Manchester United in an FA Cup semi-final today, said the decision to scrap all replays did “kick everybody in the teeth” below the top level while United boss Erik ten Hag said the scrapping of replays was “sad” but “inevitable” given the overload of the schedule on top players.

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola, whose team reached the FA Cup final on Saturday, empathises with lower-league clubs but said losing replays was “better” from a welfare perspective for players at top-flight clubs.

“I think you know better than me the reason why replays were created – it’s for the lower divisions, I guess. To have the chance, to give an opportunity for these clubs in lower divisions, to have an opportunity to play a big club, good money,” said Guardiola,

“For them (scrapping replays) is bad. In that sense, it is a problem. It’s a big blow, absolutely. For the big clubs playing the European competitions, it’s much better.

“We have less games in our tight schedule of a lot of games. To find the balance today in the world football is the most difficult thing. I understand that the clubs and the lower divisions can complain about that, because if we have a game here in the Etihad Stadium and we cannot win, we have to go to the team in the Conference or League One. That game is so important for them. This is replacing an FA Cup tradition of many, many years.

“But with the schedule that we have, especially teams that play European competitions and national teams – many players go to the national teams – it’s much better.”

The EFL said the decision to scrap FA Cup replays next season was just the most recent example of how the league and its clubs were being sidelined by the FA, with Premier League clubs having also decided to halt discussions over a new financial settlement with the EFL.

They releases a statement which reads:

“This latest agreement between the Premier League and the FA, in the absence of financial reform, is just a further example of how the EFL and its clubs are being marginalised in favour of others further up the pyramid and that only serves to threaten the future of the English game,” the EFL’s statement on Friday afternoon said.

“The EFL today calls on both the Premier League and the FA, as the governing body, to re-evaluate their approach to their footballing partnership with the EFL and engage more collaboratively on issues directly affecting our clubs.”

The EFL insisted in its statement that the decision to abolish replays was “agreed solely between the Premier League and the FA”.

The decision to scrap FA Cup replays is further evidence of the EFL and its clubs being “marginalised”, the league has said.

The Football Association announced on Thursday it had reached an agreement with the Premier League on the future format and funding of the competition, which would include all replays from the first round being abolished.

A number of EFL clubs have criticised the changes and insisted they were not consulted, with the FA releasing a statement on Friday saying it understood those concerns and would share details with them about how any shortfall in lost replay revenue may be made up.