Manchester City win the FA Cup

 Manchester City win the FA Cup

In the end, the FA Cup Final assumed its familiar shade of light blue and once again the plot bore a remarkable similarity to the four consecutive FA Cup Finals before this year's edition. This time though Manchester City reverted back to a script that  many of us had read so repeatedly that some of us knew what to expect before it had even happened. It was a case of fourth time lucky for City because this story had roughly the same narrative and characterisation as the one we'd seen a thousand times before. 

There were times when you almost felt as if you were on nodding terms with the Manchester City mantra. Of course there had to be one or two variations on a theme but then, essentially we somehow knew that City would beat their fellow Premier League high flyers Chelsea with something to spare.You could sense it in the air and there was almost a premonition that this would be City's day. Chelsea have had an up and down season, fading in and out, disappearing from all view at times before breaking into their traditional end of season flourish and swagger. It's been a season of wildly fluctuating fortunes for Chelsea, infuriating but still satisfying. 

The recent appointment of Liam Rosenior didn't go down well because Rosenior must have felt like a sticking plaster over a bleeding wound. Chelsea will finish comfortably in the top half of the Premier League season but not without the occasional moments of eccentricity and a real bout of the jitters. Maybe this has always been the case for Chelsea for as long as any of us can remember but it always seem to turn out well and for the best. Dickens would have loved Chelsea because everything seems to come up like roses for those who play their football at Stamford Bridge. 

Just when it looked as if this year's FA Cup Final would finally stay in London for another year, now it was Manchester City who felt as if they had a divine right to victory if only because they'd been denied in their last three appearances at the Wembley showpiece. And defeat is somehow both morally and outrageously unacceptable, somehow forbidden in the City hierarchy, an alien concept.  So following the Crystal Palace setback last year and their noisy neighbours loss to Manchester United the previous year, this was business as usual.

Qualification for Europe was assured for City ages ago but this was rubber stamped for good measure. Pep Guardiola, the City boss is so accustomed to that winning mentality that he may have been forgiven for complacency. But the man with the matinee idol and five o clock shadow beard on his chin, once again leapt into the air joyfully and exultantly as if he'd just been chosen as the next James Bond. Manchester City had beaten Chelsea in this year's FA Cup Final, casually, nonchalantly, arrogantly and with an almost patronising ease. Their football sung, hummed and purred effortlessly, a perfect work of art and beauty. 

Sometimes you get the impression that City get some kind of sadistic pleasure out of taunting and teasing their opponents. There is something very conceited and upper class about their football, something very dismissive and pompous about their almost decorative passing patterns. It felt at times as if City were delivering a stern lecture to opponents who dared to question the status quo. But this was City at their very finest, a side whose football was both educational and inspirational at the same time. 

So Chelsea left the headmaster's office, shaken and chastened, told never to misbehave and then given detention for the rest of the year. Chelsea must have been hoping for a spot of leniency from City but this was relentless and unforgiving. Guardiola, City's boss, looked deep in thought, pensive and ever so slightly worried in case City were just not listening to his repeated instructions and tactical demands. But City were on their guard, energised and revitalised, once again playing with their favourite carpet slippers.

The chances are that City will now miss out on winning the Premier League which will be shortly winging its way to Arsenal imminently. So here was the opportunity for Manchester City to reassert their now legendary dominance at the game's highest levels. The Premier League, more than likely, will not be in City's hands but against Chelsea, in what was always likely to be one of the cagiest of all FA Cup Finals, City were unstoppable, unsurpassable, the governing body on the day, those whose authority should never be questioned. 

Chelsea, for their part, did start the game promisingly and threateningly at times, their attack like a smooth running engine and carburettor but then leaking oil at times. Reece James, Wesley Fofana, Levi Colwell and Jarro Hato protected the Chelsea defence with a good deal of assurance and expertise while Moises Caicedo looked a world class act. Marc Cucurella, always busy and lively, ventured ever deeper into the City half with menace and persistence, often tackling too ferociously for his own good. Then Malo Gusto began to dictate the game with an impeccable mastery and control. 

Both Cole Palmer, who incidentally, is still in World Cup contention for Thomas Tuchel's England and Enzo Fernandez were purposeful and imaginative with and without the ball. But Palmer looked so slightly overawed by the big occasion and not nearly as effective as he should have been. Chelsea then looked very blunt and undercooked in attack, not nearly as intimidating and formidable as they once were under Jose Mourinho. Their passes came undone at the seams and their football seemed to fizzle out like a sparkler on Guy Fawkes night. 

So City then gave themselves complete permission to do whatever they felt was the appropriate thing to do with any of their opponents. For well over an hour or so, their football flowed like a meandering stream in the English countryside, trickling beautifully all over Wembley before gushing relentlessly in between the rocks and craggy, rugged looking hills of Chelsea's defence. There were times when City looked angelic and ethereal in possession, not even acknowledging Chelsea at times just leisurely and enjoying every minute of the 90. The job had been done before Chelsea could do anything to stop them.

There were rivers of passes, cataracts of passes that whispered quietly across the billiard green Wembley grass. There were clusters of passes between the City players, diamond encrusted, short, sweet and staccato passing movements, exquisite jewels, triangular in shape, rectangular and perpendicular, rather like biting the most delicious Danish pastry. You were reminded of a university lecturer explaining the complexities of quantum physics and just making it all look so easy. Perhaps everybody should have understood what they were talking about. It was that easy on the eye. 

At the back the likes of Matheus Nunes, the excellent England defender Marc Guehi, the commanding Abdukodir Khusanov, the power and sheer exuberance of youth displayed by Nico O'Reilly, one of City's own academy products so eager to learn, Bernardo Silva, safe as houses, evergreen and now bowing out of a game he's so adorned with his presence. 

And then there was Rodri, a player of almost regal elegance and glorious grandeur, a player wafted from some paradisial island with a scent of hibiscus and jasmine in the air. Rodri plays football with all the descriptive lyricism of a Somerset Maugham short story. Rodri has been City's driving force, the man who paints all of City's most attractive patterns in midfield and doesn't care how many times he has to do it to make his point. Rodri is the most refined of all players, a princely presence who may well become the best of all time at City. 

Then there was the dazzling wing play of Jeremy Doku and Antoine Semenyo, full of pace, playful innocence and mischievous skulduggery, slippery and sinewy, wonderfully unpredictable, stepping over, dragging back, turning defenders inside out with deceitful tricks and flicks. Doku had one of those games for City that managers must dream about and Semenyo, of course, was somehow destined to score the winning goal for Manchester City. 

So it was that Antoine Semenyo became the hero of the hour for the team in light blue. After a breath taking sequence of quick, quick, slow, slow passes from the half way line, by now City's characteristic template, the ball broke nicely for lethal striker Erling Haaland. Haaland now found himself in unusual territory on the wing but charged down the right before running at his defender and then releasing a peach of a ball to Semenyo.

The former Bournemouth flank man was in exactly in the right time and place to back heel a goal with an almost gorgeous disregard of convention. A Wembley FA Cup Final had just witnessed one of the most technically perfect of winning goals. And we were so honoured to have seen it in all of its radiant splendour. Manchester City had won another glamorous footballing occasion. No sweat. It was so simple.