Many of these supporters will be working people who have spent an awful lot of money on tickets and travel for the semi-final clash against Everton and will have had to have gone straight back to work on Monday morning.
I watched this week with interest Sir Alex Ferguson's press conference where he accused Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez of arrogance and contempt in terms of some innocuous gestures made during Liverpool's 4-0 victory over Sam Allardyce's Blackburn, smiling while questioning the journalists present as to whether they had seen Benitez behaving so badly!
It brought me back to equally incongruous comments Ferguson made on Arsene Wenger a number of years ago where he called the Arsenal manager 'a novice who should confine his opinions on the game to Japanese football.'
He's never short of something to say with regards to those managers whose teams are challenging Manchester United at any particular time in any particular competition. Arrogance and contempt are very strong words to level at any individual and seem to be totally out of step when referring to a fixture where neither he nor Manchester United were actually involved.
But if we're talking about arrogance and contempt, I could not think of two better terms to describe the way that Sir Alex has treated the greatest cup competition in the world, along with Manchester United supporters, many of whom will be working people who have spent an awful lot of money on tickets and travel for the semi-final clash against Everton and will have had to have gone straight back to work on Monday morning.
To leave so many of his star players out of the squad was completely disrespectful to the Manchester United fans and the FA Cup, and the fact that they weren't even asked to travel to London with the team made this even worse.
Was this inspiring to the younger squad members who had to take to the field and put in a shift? Did it send out the correct messages to the Manchester United starting XI today? Rest is one thing, but it surely must be tempered with the potential effects that defeat today would have had on those that did play, in terms of the way they now feel and the way that they approach the remainder of the season, if and when called upon.
It is the first occasion that I can recall that resting players for such an important fixture has meant keeping them away from the occasion all together.
Ironically, Ferguson, in his tirade against Benitez, also made clear that he was angered that the Liverpool manager had dismissed Everton as not being a big club, and Ferguson stated clearly that he believed that they were.
Unless Ferguson wanted to actually lose the game on Sunday, a look at the team sheet at 3.15pm on Sunday afternoon hardly gave the impression that he viewed today's opponents as presenting much of a challenge to his United team or indeed of being a 'big club'.
I actually wanted Manchester United to win going into the game for the simple fact that I support any English club that does well. I admire their style and quality of football and I think that the quintuple was a real possibility this season under Sir Alex, who perhaps only has a year or two before he retires. I would have loved for an English club, and Sir Alex after all of his years and successes in the game, to pull off such an incredible feat.
Well done to David Moyes and his Everton team today – they are having a terrific league and cup season and operating on limited resources. Sir Alex, it must be said, got exactly what he deserved today, and, for the Manchester United fans, I think he ruined what will probably be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win those five pieces of silverware in a single season.
That opportunity is unlikely to present itself again too often in the future, so it is a real missed opportunity to have done something very special, especially as the World Club Championship is likely to grow in importance and prestige in the coming years.
I think the reaction from Rio Ferdinand in lashing the ball into the crowd after missing the second of United's penalties is not one which you would usually expect from a captain, and it perhaps gave Everton's following penalty takers added confidence.
The culpability, though, has to squarely lie with Ferguson, who has treated with gross arrogance and contempt today one of the finest institutions in British sport.
Mind you, it probably shouldn't surprise too much, as though I am an admirer of the club, Ferguson treats the BBC and the British public with arrogance and contempt every week of every season of every year in his refusing to speak to the institution due to a piece of journalism some years ago being aired that focused on his son Jason's dealings as football agent. How the Premier League has never stamped down on him because of this I'll never know.
But Sunday’s match wasn't about the Premier League – it was about the FA Cup – and I feel that Sir Alex should be careful of using the words arrogance and contempt with regards to the behaviour or conduct of fellow managers with such haste and flippancy in the future.
Perhaps he should reflect and question whether he himself has been guilty of arrogance, or even perhaps contempt, in best serving the interests of the Football Associations Challenge Cup and the travelling supporters of Manchester United.