ILKAY GUNDOGAN’S DOUBLE made Manchester City’s double and now Manchester United’s last resort in stopping the Treble is fretting hope in Istanbul next week.
This defeat for United should not trigger any kind of inquest or shame. Where their Treble chase was a 10-day defying of the odds, City’s is a relentless assertion of the natural order.
Erik ten Hag’s approach shrank this final to one of narrow margins but ultimately City’s technically superior players still had too much wriggle room. If United can be said to have lost this final, they lost it across the many chaotic transfer windows that led to the clunky melding of this collection of players.
By contrast, City’s system is so slick it endows games with a new difference-maker every week. Today’s was Ilkay Gundogan.
That Gundogan is often a support act is the kind of luxury unique to City: he is as decisive in key moments for his team as Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard ever were but is programmed with the kind of tactical brain that eluded both.
Here he won the FA Cup without needing to even enter the box. Both of his goals were volleys in the truest sense of the word: the first was a scythe across the ball that sailed into the top corner after only 13 seconds, while the second was the stuff of steely-eyed control that skipped thrice and then beyond David de Gea.
City were not at their best but for that United deserve credit, with their set-up successfully staunching the flow of City’s build-up. Ten Hag sent out his players to man-mark City’s box midfield – their quad squad, in Successionspeak – with Bruno Fernandes and Christian Eriksen diligently disrupting Rodri and John Stones, leaving City short of passing options.
United’s nose was bloodied earlier in an FA Cup final than anyone’s ever before, but they steadied admirably and earned their leveller through a penalty decision both correct and abominable. The referee did his job in awarding it, following rules that have been rewritten and perverted for the Age of VAR.
The rules have been rewritten to strive for an objectivity that will always be elusive, but today Jack Grealish raised his left arm – thus making his body “unnaturally bigger” – and the ball then grazed the tips of his fingers. This ticked the criteria for a handball in an era of the game that obsesses over technicalities rather than context. At no point did anyone take a step back to ask if Grealish intend to handle the ball, which is why the rule exists in the first place. Correct VAR interventions are proving as bad as the incorrect ones.
Gundogan’s winning goal came shortly after-half time, and having seemed to genuflect as the first goal sailed past him, De Gea spent too long admiring the second volley, diving in stages to try and get his hand to a slow, skidding shot. If Gundogan’s moment was straight from Roy of the Rovers, De Gea’s dive looked like it had been animated by flick picture book.
City’s control of the game grew as the second half wore on, with John Stones regal on the ball and flinty without it, diving in late to make a crucial block on Alejandro Garnacho. But bar one late scramble onto the crossbar in the box, City were largely comfortable in closing the game out with United stymied by the lack of impact from their bench beyond Garnacho.
United also lacked technical quality in too many parts of the pitch, and Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s failure to slip through Fernandes in the second-half will be no-less galling for ten Hag on the video review.
Defeat and the implications of City’s triumph will mantle United’s perspective, but this is a dispiriting note at the end of a very encouraging season. They had the right plan to beat City today but didn’t have enough players of quality to execute it.
City have no such problems. Never before have an English side matched this depth of talent with this level of sophistication. Even the larrups forward to the big number nine have taken on the veneer of tactical ingenuity. But the banner reading ’115′ in the Manchester United end was a reminder of the cloud that still hangs over this awesome creation.
At the end of the game, Erling Haaland’s first reaction was to scream “Now one more.”
One more trophy to go for Manchester City, and one more week before United’s patent on the Treble expires.
