Scholes: United have to perform at Wembley

Manchester United great Paul Scholes has warned his former club not to take Saturday’s FA Cup final for granted.

United are favourites for Saturday’s Wembley clash against Crystal Palace, but Scholes said the players still have to go out and get the job done as the club looks to end its FA Cup drought.

“I think people are probably assuming United are going to win it but it’s going to be a tough game,” Scholes, who won three FA Cups with United, told the Manchester Evening News.

“Crystal Palace are a decent side and I think they can cause any teams problems, so I think it will be tight.”

Once the record holders for most FA Cup wins, United have slipped behind Arsenal and have not won the fabled competition since 2004, reaching just two finals in the 12 years since.

United can join Arsenal on 12 FA Cup triumphs should they win on Saturday and put some gloss on another underwhelming season at Old Trafford.

“It [the drought] has been disappointing as we obviously want to be in the FA Cup final as it’s a big day,” he said.

“It’s long overdue but I also think it hasn’t really been a priority. We all know it’s a massive major competition but was it the priority over the Champions League or the Premier League?

“We always seem to go after those two which you can probably understand and a lot of the times we would go out of the FA Cup as our team was missing players that would needed to be rested for the big Champions League and Premier League games.”