While Manchester United anxiously await the bulletins about Wayne Rooney’s fitness, there is a temptation to suggest their fate rests on him once again.
Arguably, however, it depends upon which Sunderland shows up for tonight’s League Cup semi-final second leg. Gus Poyet’s side specialise in unpredictability.
They confound expectations at every turn.
Just when it appeared a corner had been turned, they were appalling in the first half of Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Southampton. If United are concerned, it is because David Moyes has first-hand evidence of their fondness for the big occasion.
They have beaten United, City, Chelsea, Everton, Southampton and Newcastle, six of the top nine this season, and lost to most of the relegation-threatened teams.
They are consistently inconsistent, but are promising to be fearless. "If you try to get a draw, then the first thing that comes to your mind is to lose and that will happen," said Fabio Borini, who scored a controversial first-leg penalty against United. "We're going there to win."
Yet, as they may only be 180 minutes away from ending a 41-year wait for major silverware, Sunderland’s status as underdogs does not spare them pressure.
This tie is their first semi-final in a decade.
Their last final came 22 years ago in the 1992 FA Cup, and they have only reached this competition’s showpiece occasion once.
The 1985 League Cup final was decided Norwich City’s way when Sunderland’s Gordon Chisholm scored an own goal. His team were duly demoted at the end of the campaign.
Sunderland may sense an unwanted action replay.
Their propensity to put the ball in their own net has been a feature of the season and Poyet was appointed to preserve their Premier League status, rather than his enviable playing record in knock-out competitions.
Winning a semi-final would be rare feeling for both Sunderland and the United manager, if not the old guard in his team.
They used to negotiate such ties with enviable expertise. A rare exception came in a 2009 FA Cup exit to Everton: Moyes’s only semi-final success.
That apart, his experience of such stages is miserable. By his own admission, the most disappointing game of his 11 years at Everton was a semi-final when the chance of silverware, once again, slipped away from the serial nearly man.
It was the 2012 FA Cup and Everton were paired with a fragile, failing Liverpool at Wembley.
They lost, leading Moyes, earlier this month, to reflect upon a missed opportunity with enduring regret.
Two years later, memories of an undistinguished display linger. “We just didn’t quite get it [right] on the day,” he said.
Two years on, a Moyes team entered another seemingly winnable semi-final. Once again, they were beaten 2-1. The difference is the League Cup’s two-legged structure offers the opportunity for redemption.
“We’re going to go out and do everything we can to get through,” Moyes said.
With Nemanja Vidic suspended, Robin van Persie injured and the health of Patrice Evra and Rooney uncertain, it is no simple task.
For United, the memories may be of the 2010 semi-final against Manchester City when, after a 2-1 defeat away, they responded in rousing fashion at home, with Rooney scoring the late decider. For Moyes, past parallels are less pleasant.
His Everton side froze when Chelsea visited Goodison Park in the last-four stage in 2008. The feeling was that they, and he, almost wanted victory too much, perverse as it sounds.
There could be the same scenario tonight. Out of the FA Cup, out of the Premier League title race and with only the most optimistic believing they stand any chance in the Uefa Champions League, this is the last chance to win a meaningful trophy this season.
As Moyes’s meagre medal collection stretches to the Community Shield, which he credited to Sir Alex Ferguson, and the third-tier title, won with Preston in 2000, it is the sort of validation he desperately requires.
As Phil Jones bluntly put it: “We have to get to that final.”
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