Man United’s Darren Fletcher eyes ‘massive’ Sunderland clash

Darren Fletcher admits Manchester United’s League Cup semi-final first-leg clash against Sunderland is a “massive game” following their FA Cup exit.

Wilfried Bony scored a last-minute winner to help Swansea City secure a shock 2-1 victory over the Red Devils in their third-round clash at Old Trafford on Sunday.

We are away to Sunderland and we’ve got to recover quickly and lift ourselves

Darren Fletcher

With United trailing league leaders Arsenal by 11 points and out of the FA Cup, Fletcher stressed the importance of United bouncing back in the Capital One Cup.

“It’s a League Cup semi-final, if you can’t lift yourself for that then it’s no good,” Fletcher told United’s website.

“We have got a great opportunity, we are away to Sunderland and we’ve got to recover quickly and lift ourselves. That’s a massive game now.”

Fletcher added that the United squad owe David Moyes and the Red Devils supporters a result after back-to-back Old Trafford losses.

“It’s a really disappointed dressing room in there. It’s a massive blow, let’s not kid ourselves, this is a bad result. There’s a lot of angry, hurt players and we feel like we’ve let the manager and the fans down.

“I thought we were the stronger team in the first half and that was the point where we should have gone on and finished the game off, or definitely taken the lead.

“We never managed to do that and the red card gave them a great boost in the last 10 minutes, and they went on to get the winning goal.”