I was following a lot of chatter going into the Manchester Derby FA Cup final, and as expected, many Manchester City fans were very bullish when they came in front of the camera.
“We are going to win the double double”
“We are all about making history. Here’s to the first double double”
Apparently, there’s actually a thing called ‘double double’, when you win back to back domestic doubles in English football, and from the best of my knowledge, I don’t think that has been done. Then again, no team had won four Premier League titles in a row, thereby changing it to a farmer’s league like the Ligue Un or Bundesliga, because this Manchester City title winning juggernaut has dominated the English game for far too long. They have the oil-rich greens that has seen them spend billions and billions since Khaldoon Al Mubarak took over, they have the squad quality depth that gives them the edge year after year in each title campaign and they have a monster of a manager, Pep Guardiola, that’s addicted to winning championships wherever he goes.
In all honesty, I didn’t watch the entire game, because I was engaged in other stuff, but I managed to catch a glimpse of the second half that saw Manchester City launch barrage after barrage of attacks, while Manchester United defended like their lives depended on it. The pressure was really intensified with almost everything coming from the effervescent Jeremy Doku, or Count Dooku, as I prefer to call him. The much-maligned Andre Onana came under the spotlight for allowing Doku’s late drive somehow find its way past him, but he made some outstanding saves to keep the game at bay.
The ref’s final whistle was like music to the ears of everyone associated with Manchester United, as the fans at Wembley and WhatsApp groups alike went into raptures. Then there were the drafts of how they have had a better campaign than Arsenal all of a sudden, and Erik Ten Hag is the GOAT because he delivered a trophy. Hey, we’ve been there, when we had such a shitty season, also finishing in eighth place, and had the gloss of a FA Cup win to mask the surface. Happened in the season Mikel Arteta took over from Unai Emery. It’s like having so much damage in your car with a terrible engine that needs to be fixed badly, but all you do is apply paint on the bonnet.
Typically, a FA Cup win like this in the midst of an atrocious campaign is meant to buy the manager some much needed time, but word on the street is that Erik Ten Hag may still be leaving despite beating the old enemy for the coveted domestic English competition.
The cascading effect of this Manchester United cup victory was far reaching, dropping Chelsea to the UEFA Conference League, while denying European football of any sort to Newcastle, which is quite an interesting dynamic in the Premier League. Players like Alexander Isak and Bruno Giimaraes may want to move, having gotten the feel of Champions League football, only to miss out on European football the very next campaign.
At least, we are certain of another Manchester Derby in next season’s curtain raiser, the Community Shield.
So much for the Double Double.
Sayonara.