Tevez leads United in Fulham FA Cup rout

Manchester United’s imperious march towards five trophies in a season continued here Saturday as Carlos Tevez scored twice in a 4-0 win over Fulham that saw his side into the FA Cup semi-finals.

Tevez’s first-half double at Craven Cottage put Sir Alex Ferguson’s team in charge before further goals from Wayne Rooney and Park Ji-Sung wrapped up a commanding victory.

With the FIFA Club World Cup and the League Cup already in the Old Trafford trophy room and the Premier League title theirs to lose, this win left United two victories away from winning the FA Cup for the twelfth time.

And before they resume league action against Liverpool next weekend, they face Inter Milan in Manchester with a place in the Champions League quarter-finals up for grabs.

It’s little wonder Ferguson gives the impression his hardest job right now is keeping expectations down to a manageable level.

This was a victory completed with supreme confidence and surprising ease against Premier League rivals who had lost just twice at home this season before this game.

Ferguson was even allowed the luxury of resting a clutch of his star players including Cristiano Ronaldo and Dimitar Berbatov ahead of the midweek European clash.

Tevez’s third minute shot gave a clear indication of what was to come but, doubtless to the relief of the watching Inter scouts, United did appear unusually vulnerable for a spell when Fulham finally found their feet and began to pressurise the visitors’ back four.

Surprisingly the guiltiest culprit among United’s defence was Serbian centre-back Nemanja Vidic who was initially caught out by Andy Johnson’s clever flick from Simon Davies’s long ball that eluded Edwin Van der Sar, which was kept out of the net only by Vidic’s recovering lunge.

With Clint Dempsey also forcing an early save from United keeper van der Sar, Fulham could claim to have had the best of the opening 19 minutes.

That was as good as it got, however, for Roy Hodgson’s side who saw all their good early work go to waste when they failed to deal with a 20th minute corner, allowing Tevez to head United into the lead.

Anderson’s ball in was won by Rooney and the England striker’s header flew towards the back post where his strike-partner easily out-jumped Fulham left-back Paul Konchesky to finish from close range.

United were moving smoothly through the gears, and when Fulham midfielder Davies volleyed over from inside the area, there was a sense of inevitability about the outcome.

That feeling was reinforced in dramatic style when Tevez conjured a superb individual effort to put United 2-0 up in the 35th minute.

The Argentine collected the ball just inside the Fulham half and with the home defence backing off, advanced towards the edge of the box where he unleashed a powerful right foot drive that flashed into the top corner.

Tevez’s moment of brilliance meant that Rooney’s earlier astonishing miss – the striker turned Park’s low cross against the post from just five yards out – was quickly forgotten as United took total command.

Any remaining doubts about the likely outcome were erased when Rooney made up for his earlier gaffe by placing an inch-perfect shot beyond Australia goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer from the edge of area to make it 3-0 just five minutes into the second-half.

United conjured a fourth goal when Park intercepted Zoltan Gera’s wayward pass and curled an excellent finish past Schwarzer with nine minutes remaining.