Wigan Athletic 0-2 Man Utd: Devils advance with Dalot's goal and Bruno's penalty

Erik ten Hag's side scrape through to the fourth round of the FA Cup thanks to goals from Diogo Dalot and Bruno Fernandes.

Manchester United brought so many supporters to the DW Stadium that they occupied the whole of one side of it. As bad as United get, and as low as they fall, they keep on coming to watch.

Here, on a freezing cold Lancashire night, United’s support at least got a little of what their patience and their loyalty deserved. Erik ten Hag’s team were professional, diligent and occasionally expansive.

After their goalkeeper Andre Onana bailed them out in the third minute, they dominated their opponents from League One to the extent that they mustered more than 30 shots on goal. More importantly, two of them went in and Ten Hag was able to head home down the M61 in the knowledge that another week of difficult questions had been averted.

Once again members of Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS team were here to watch United’s season roll on. It’s United’s support that had made the greater investment on this occasion, though, and it was of an emotional kind. This game was on terrestrial television and took place at the start of a January week that will end with a home game with Tottenham in the Premier League. There was, in short, plenty reason enough not to be here.

The hordes that came, though, saw their team take a stranglehold on the match after a tricky opening ten minutes. Once full-back Diogo Dalot scored midway through the opening period the pattern of the game was largely set. And though it took a Bruno Fernandes penalty top secure passage to round four in the 74th minute, Wigan had long since disappeared from the game as an attacking presence.

Shaun Maloney’s team – 18th in the third tier and on a run of one win in