Manchester City took a second step towards the treble on Saturday afternoon.
Manchester United’s treble.
They did it by putting their own local rivals to the sword at Wembley.
United had their opportunity to stop it, but relinquished it. They shipped the fastest ever goal in a FA Cup final to Ilkay Gundogan, and then a second to the City captain early in the second half. Both goals preventable, or at least you’d think, for a fully competent Champions League football team.
They weren’t preventable on this day though. Victor Lindelof’s indecision and lack of aggression in the air led to the first, while the second bobbled past the highest paid goalkeeper in the game early in the second half, undoing all the momentum United had steadily built up since falling behind in 13 seconds against the strongest team on the planet. David de Gea did not have his greatest day.
United have made steady progress over the course of Erik ten Hag’s first season in charge, and such progress was reflected in Saturday’s result. The United of even a few months ago would have capitulated under the early stress, as has been evident on so many occasions against direct rivals – City included. United were 4-0 down to the Premier League champions at half time in October, similar at Brentford in August, and lost 7-0 to Liverpool in March.
But this job wasn’t ever going to be fixed in a season. It’s an indictment on the running of United from top to bottom in the ten years since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement which has allowed City to run to trophies largely unchallenged by Manchester’s red half, rather than any reflection on Ten Hag’s abilities. He has spent his first season reintroducing competence to his new team and has a top-four place and one trophy to show for it.
City are placed to win a treble, but it’s been an inevitability for a number of years now. It was always going to happen at some point. Ten Hag’s long-term task is to ensure it doesn’t happen again by building a team which can match them.
United did for spells of this game and had their own chances, but were let down early in each half by errors from players who aren’t cut out to be long-term members of Ten Hag’s new United.