There’s a real sense of irony surrounding the club now seeing as Chelsea lodged a formal complaint with the FA regarding referee Mark Clattenburg’s alleged racist comments towards John Obi Mikel just a few hours before this photo was taken. Manchester United fans brought a banner to the game claiming “Chelsea – Standing up to racism since Sunday,” but their stance now looks uneven.

The fan in question has not been identified but the club are currently investigating the picture, which also features Danny Welbeck. This is the second time in the last two years an opposing supporter has been caught mimicking racial behaviour. During the summer a Liverpool supporter received a four-year ban for an identical action towards Patrice Evra. However Phillip Gannon, the Liverpool fan, idiotically claimed he was impersonating a Neanderthal and pleaded not guilty to a racially aggravated public order offence and using threatening or anti-social behaviour causing harassment, alarm or distress. Offended by everything, ashamed of nothing.

The scoreline tells you how close the game was. Chelsea’s line-up had that ‘you score 3, we’ll score 4′ attitude about it but that didn’t look to frighten our youngsters. In the second half the blues brought Ramires, Hazard and Oscar on as replacements which suggested how desperate Roberto Di Matteo was to win after Sunday’s loss. Thankfully that didn’t change Ferguson’s mindset and he stuck by his youth with Powell, Tunnicliffe and Macheda being the substitutions.

Errors made in the team tonight were down to players getting tired and inexperience creeping in, not their overall ability. They were a credit to the club tonight given how many Chelsea first team regulars featured. It was truly enjoyable to watch.

Ferguson was disappointed with the result after being in complete control for the match. Despite being pleased with the football put on show, he slammed Nani after his performance. The relationship between the pair has clearly suffered another blow.

“We gave the ball away for the third goal,” Ferguson said. “We were in complete control of the match at that point, playing really good football and all we needed to do was see the game out and keep possession. Nani decided to try and beat a player, lost the ball and we ended up conceding a penalty kick. It’s disappointing. Some of our football was terrific. Our counter-attacking was very good, but if you are winning 3-2 in the final seconds of the game then you should see it out. We only have ourselves to blame, really.

I have always said we had the best away support in the league and tonight proved it’s still going strong. Whenever United travel to Anfield you hear our voice over the ‘famous’ Liverpool support, who recently claimed it was disrespectful to chant during their version of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone.’

In the last week, United have played Chelsea twice. Stamford Bridge isn’t an easy ground to travel to and we picked up our first league win there in 10 years. The game turned out to be another controversial tie between both clubs but perhaps more extreme than usual. Chelsea claimed referee Mark Clattenburg used inappropriate language towards two of their players, which was later reported to be someway racial. That resulted in United fans hanging a banner earlier tonight saying “Chelsea – Standing up to racism since Sunday.” An obvious dig at John Terry.

It got better. The match wasn’t controversial just because of reports published after full time. Mark Clattenburg was caught in the middle of conspiracy missiles due to a number of decisions. Fernando Torres, who was already booked, saw red after exaggerating contact from Jonny Evans in attempt to get the Manchester United defender booked. That rightly backfired seeing as Torres had already got lucky in the first half when he launched a chest high lunge on Tom Cleverley and walked away with just a yellow card.

The reaction from Chelsea fans sounded like something you’d only expect from Merseyside. It gave us a chance to point the finger and laugh which is exactly what we did.

Bench: Sam Johnstone, Nick Powell, Federico Macheda, Jessie Lingard, Ryan Tunnicliffe, Robbie Brady, Vermijl.

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When Tunnicliffe was 9-years-old his father had made a bet that his son would one day play for Manchester United before taking the odds of 100-1 with a £100 bet. Can’t say many dads in this world would think of taking a gamble like that, never mind actually expecting it to work out their way.

Having grown up just 10 miles from Old Trafford, Ryan has always been a Red. There’s something about Manchester United providing quality homegrown players which is another aspect I love about the club. From working his way up through United’s youth ranks to winning the Jimmy Murphy Player of the Year award in 2011, Tunnicliffe is hoping to learn from more first team action.

Ryan Tunnicliffe left Old Trafford knowing he had helped the club progress in the competition after replacing Marnick Vermijl with just over ten minutes remaining. If that wasn’t enough his dad, one of 46,358 attending, pocketed £10,000.

Having knocked Everton out of the tournament a lot of United fans wanted an away trip to Elland Road or Anfield. The atmosphere on cup days against our fiercest rivals are always a treat, especially when they don’t get to hammer Leeds as often since they’re no longer in the top division after being relegated from the Premier League in 2004. As for Liverpool, they picked up Swansea in the draw meaning Brendan Rodgers will be up against his former club.

The Reds, who are in the hunt to win the League Cup for the third time in five years, beat Newcastle 2-1 on Wednesday night at Old Trafford. It’s not often you see Anderson and Cleverley on the scoresheet, never mind a pair of midfielders.

Ties will be played on the week commencing October 29.

Sunderland v Middlesbrough
Swindon Town v Aston Villa
Wigan Athletic v Bradford
Leeds United v Southampton
Norwich City v Tottenham Hotspur
Liverpool v Swansea City
Chelsea v Manchester United
Reading v Arsenal

United scored the opener a minute before the interval when Anderson’s driving run from midfield resulted in a lovely strike into the near post. Tom Cleverley curled home United’s second on 58, however Newcastle were soon back in the match when Papiss Demba Cisse tucked home a left wing cross at the back stick less than a minute after coming on from the bench.

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Bench: Sam Johnstone, Jonny Evans, Nick Powell, Jessie Lingard, Robbie Brady, Ryan Tunnicliffe, Joshua King.