Manchester United beat Aston Villa 1-0 on Monday night in the Emirates FA Cup to secure progress to the fourth round.
We’ll face Championship side Middlesbrough at Old Trafford in early February, a game which will give us an opportunity to extend our impressive recent home record in the competition.
The Villa victory was United’s 10th consecutive FA Cup win at Old Trafford, adding to a club-record run which now goes back five years, to January 2017.
The sequence started with a couple of back-to-back 4-0 victories over Reading and Wigan in the third and fourth rounds, when Jose Mourinho was manager.
Wayne Rooney, Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford, with a late brace, were on the scoresheet as the Royals were put to the sword, while Marouane Fellaini, Chris Smalling, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Bastian Schweinsteiger found the net against 2013 winners Wigan Athletic.
After an away win versus Blackburn Rovers, the Reds were knocked out at the quarter-final stage by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, but the run resumed in 2018 with Romelu Lukaku-inspired 2-0 successes over Derby County and Brighton & Hove Albion, in a year the Reds made it to the final at Wembley.
We only played two home cup games over the next three years, with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the dugout for another 2-0 victory over Reading, before a Juan Mata goal settled a tight replay with Wolves in January 2020.
Last season’s competition, played largely behind closed doors, saw us drawn at home in the opening three rounds for the first time since 2007.
After a narrow 1-0 win over Watford, with Scott McTominay nodding in the only goal, there was a five-goal thriller with Liverpool.
Bruno Fernandes had the last word in that game with a stunning free-kick and Mo Salah’s brace for the Merseysiders are the only goals United have conceded during the 10-game run.
McTominay found an extra-time winner against David Moyes’s West Ham United in the following round and he was again the man of the moment when the Villans came to town on Monday night.
The best previous winning run at Old Trafford we can find in the FA Cup spanned seven games between 1983 and 1986.
United lifted the trophy twice during this period and the likes of Frank Stapleton, Mark Hughes and Norman Whiteside all registered goals during victories over West Ham (twice), Everton, Bournemouth, Coventry City, Rochdale and Sunderland.
There was an eight-game winning sequence between 1908 and 1912, encompassing United’s first success in the competition, although the opening five matches were played at our old Bank Street home.