Derby County v Manchester United: FA Cup fifth round – live!

Here are the teams again in purely text-based form:

Derby County: Roos, Bogle, Evans, Forsyth, Lowe, Sibley, Bird, Knight, Rooney, Lawrence, Waghorn. Subs: Shinnie, Hamer, Marriott, Clarke, Martin, Davies, Whittaker.
Manchester United: Romero, Dalot, Lindelof, Bailly, Shaw, McTominay, Fred, Mata, Bruno Fernandes, Lingard, Ighalo. Subs: De Gea, Martial, Andreas Pereira, Greenwood, Matic, Tuanzebe, Williams.
Referee: Craig Pawson.

Six changes for Manchester United, with Odion Ighalo, Jesse Lingard and Juan Mata among those coming in. Harry Maguire has turned an ankle in training and thus spends the evening at home with an icepack. Rooney as expected starts for Derby.

Hello world!

Tonight’s the night! The night, that is, when Derby County, the only non-Premier League team left in the FA Cup, play Manchester United, and all eyes will turn to a certain Wayne Mark Rooney, the home side’s captain and player-coach, formerly of course of United. People will gaze upon his bearded visage, and shake their heads and talk about how much better he used to be, just as they have been for approximately the last 15 years (though for much of that time he didn’t have the beard).

This has become an uncannily familiar fixture, with Derby having knocked United out of the Carabao Cup at Old Trafford last season (with Harry Wilson scoring a quite ludicrous free-kick) and losing 2-0 there in the FA Cup the previous season. Indeed, it is the clubs’ fourth cup meeting in five seasons, which is weird because there were only eight in the previous 120. Though this one’s at Pride Park, Old Trafford has already hosted almost as many cup ties against Derby in the last couple of years (two) as it had in the previous 108 years (three).

But for all that it is in many ways familiar, tonight’s match is also a one-off, unique occasion that all fans will be rightly excited about, because Derby will be wearing shirts that uniquely feature both player names and squad numbers in their official typeface, known as BBG DCFC. Do try to contain yourself.

Here’s some pre-match reading courtesy of Ben Fisher, who had a chat with Rooney about it: