Manchester United 2-1 Manchester City
by James Nalton
at Wembley
THE UNLIKELIHOOD of the victory made the celebrations in the Manchester United end all the more boisterous, as the red half of this latest Wembley Manchester derby savoured a memorable FA Cup win.
This was supposed to be a walk in the Wembley park for United’s local rivals and final opponents Manchester City. Pep Guardiola’s side were heavy favourites to lift their second trophy of the season having claimed the Premier League title a week earlier.
Instead, United, in what was widely rumoured to be Erik ten Hag’s last game in charge, found a way to get at City, using wide attackers Alejandro Garnacho and Marcus Rashford to pierce holes in the City defence on the counter-attack.
Garnacho forced a mistake from Josko Gvardiol and Stefan Ortega to earn a tap-in to open the scoring, then a well-worked move started by Rashford, involving Garnacho and Bruno Fernandes, finished by Kobbie Mainoo, put United 2-0 to the good at half time.
Guardiola admitted after the game that he got his tactics wrong in the first half. This might have been a way to protect his players, who were defensively poor in that opening period and also offered little in attack.
Having Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden close to Erling Haaland in attack, with Bernardo Silva creating from wide on the right, felt like it should have worked, but there were no chances of note for City in the first half.
Jeremy Doku was introduced in the second half for City and added what was only a consolation goal late on. Guardiola’s team looked more like themselves but couldn’t take any of the other chances they created.
After the game, Ten Hag faced questions about his future at every turn. Nothing was confirmed by the coach nor the club on whether the Dutchman will still be in charge at Old Trafford next season.
Questions about poor league form were batted off with varying levels of resistance.
The BBC Match of the Day panel were given a patient explanation from Ten Hag about the lack of players available to him this season due to injury.
In contrast, a journalist in the post-match press conference was told that anyone questioning United’s league finish, given the player absences throughout the season, knows nothing about managing a football team.
It is safe to say Ten Hag enjoyed the win as much as the United fans. He described winning the FA Cup as a bucket list moment and said: “Two trophies in two years is not bad. Two FA Cup finals in two years is not bad.
“If they don’t want me any more, I’ll go somewhere else to win trophies, because that is what I have done for my whole career.”
