O'Shea hails six of the bestJOHN O'Shea has urged his Manchester United team-mates to remember the first six minutes and forget the remaining 84 of their pulsating FA Cup tie at Reading.
Far from serving up drab fare for a national television audience, two much-changed sides fought out a titanic duel which United eventually edged to seal a quarter-final trip to Middlesbrough.
Reds boss Sir Alex Ferguson could hardly have been happy at how difficult the evening was, considering his side were three goals ahead inside the opening six minutes.
It is the scintillating football United produced during that mesmerising start O'Shea feels his colleagues need to concentrate on as they look ahead to a crucial Premiership encounter with Liverpool on Saturday.
"I know we let Reading back into it but we have to try to take the positives out of the win and some of our football at the start was sensational," said the Republic of Ireland international.
"To score three goals so quickly wasn't even in our wildest dreams. Reading probably wanted to get stuck into us during the early stages but we were buzzing and in less than six minutes they were three goals behind."
What happened afterwards did not please Ferguson, who felt his team over-elaborated on a pitch which was more conducive to getting the ball upfield than any intricate passing moves.
Possession
In gifting Reading possession at key times, United contributed to a hugely uncomfortable evening, which could have ended in total disaster had Brynjar Gunnarsson's injury-time strike not cannoned back off the crossbar.
"We know we should have killed the game off," reflected O'Shea, who set up Gabriel Heinze's opener with a fine burst into the Reading box.
"Once their second went in, we knew we would have to defend for our lives because they were going to start pumping long balls into the box.
"It wasn't a question of being complacent because we knew they would try and make a game of it and they might have taken it to extra-time. The one that hit the bar at the end was very unlucky.
"Overall though, I think we deserved the result in the end."
The March 10 trip to Middlesbrough concludes another massive week for United, which starts at Liverpool on Saturday.
Victory at Anfield would briefly see the Red Devils take a 12-point lead at the Premiership summit.
Effect
While closest rivals Chelsea would then have two games in hand, the psychological effect of doing what no other side has done to Rafael Benitez's men on their own patch - including the Blues - would be devastating.
Yet O'Shea knows United cannot afford to start thinking the title would be won if they return from Merseyside with three points.
Mathematically speaking, with nine games still remaining, there would still be plenty of work to do.
"We cannot afford to think the title is won if we win at Anfield," he said.
"It is an early kick-off so we get the chance to go 12 points ahead but we know the way Liverpool have been playing at home in particular, and from our matches against them in years gone by that the game is going to be very tough.
"But we are full of confidence just now. The manager is loving it and so are we. We have a lot of big games coming up but that is exactly where we want to be."
O'Shea's midfield partner Darren Fletcher is a doubt after he limped out of the Madejski Stadium encounter.
However, Ferguson's ploy of resting most of his senior men means Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Henrik Larsson will all be fresh, while Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo did not extend themselves too much with their late substitute appearances.
Nemanja Vidic also returned to training yesterday after a brief break and the tough-tackling Serbian will almost certainly return to add some much-needed steel to United's defence.
Now... if Reading had gotten a third goal those 84 minutes would have overshadowed the first six even more. We screwed up, O'shea and the others should focus on how we fucked up, because in most matches those six minutes would never have happened.
