For Manchester United at least, interest in the FA Cup final is focused not on the outcome so much as what it might mean for coach Erik ten Hag.
That might be because the chances of United succeeding against a Manchester City team widely regarded as the finest champions England has ever had, are remote. Or it may reflect the parlous thread by which Ten Hag’s reign hangs after a season of deathly regression.
It would help were United to keep City at bay for longer than they managed a year ago when, 12 seconds in, Ilkay Gundogan smashed the quickest goal in FA Cup final history.
United actually recovered well, scrambling an equaliser from the spot and appearing plausible for an hour, before City engaged another gear to secure the second leg of their record-equalling treble.
This will be United’s 22nd appearance in the final, a record that in another epoch might have reflected the club’s status. Today it is merely a token of past eminence, an echo of a time when the world was Fergie-shaped and United bestrode the game with the same hauteur now projected by their imperious neighbours.
That Ten Hag flags the occasion as a significant milestone in this phase of his stewardship tells us more about his faltering grip on reality than the health of the club.
He talks about trophies being the ultimate measure, failing to acknowledge that the best way of securing them is by playing the better football. In a data swamp of damning statistics, a second successive FA Cup final has become a life raft on which to cling, not a reflection of upward momentum.
Given the inconclusive signals coming out of Old Trafford, Ten Hag is, perhaps, excused the belief that the club remains invested in him.
However, changes elsewhere, including the sudden appearance on the market of Mauricio Pochettino, previously courted by Sir Jim Ratcliffe at his French club Nice, and Roberto De Zerbi, have fed into the counter perception that Ten Hag is cooked. The only question is one of timing. United are caught between the desire to move on and prudence.
In a restrictive financial climate, hanging on to Ten Hag until the next accounting window begins (1 July) would mean any compensation, reported to be £10m, would fall into next year’s accounts.
In the new atmosphere of financial rigour and responsibility every million counts, especially with the club needing to sell to finance significant recruitment.
Book-keeping concerns aside, it is hard to fathom the justifications for keeping Ten Hag in post. A second season of chronically low scoring, failing again to breach 60 goals, a record 14 Premier League defeats, a lowest Premier League finish, eighth, no obvious style or pattern of play.
It seems Ten Hag has only excuses to explain all this away, injuries and hierarchical disfunction being the sum of his argument.
Taking his lead from any headmaster contemplating an end-of-year report as withering as this, you can imagine Ratcliffe rising from his chair to declare: “Sorry boy. This just won’t do.”
For the head of a new regime predicated on data-based, joined-up thinking it would be some departure to retain a manager with Ten Hag’s numbers, however compromised he has been by circumstance.
Ten Hag repeatedly refers to the team’s spirit, a willingness to fight, of moments of quality. He claims the margins in big games have been small. All of which screams denial when set against the facts.
Over 38 games United finished 31 points behind City in the Premier League having scored 39 goals fewer and let in 24 more. The defeats rise to 19 in all competitions, as opposed to City’s four, excluding penalty shoot-outs.
Wembley promises to be another coruscating appraisal. Of course, United might fashion a positive result. Yet, to speak about United in such reduced terms is itself a grim commentary of the inversion of power in the English game.
Twenty-five years ago almost to the day, United authored one of the most memorable endings in the history of the European Cup to claim Champions League victory against Bayern Munich in Barcelona. Four days later City engineered a similarly epic comeback against Gillingham at Wembley to secure promotion from the third tier.
You could argue that the City team of Goater, Horlock and Dickov were closer to United then than Ten Hag’s ragged ensemble are to City now, such is the canyon-like chasm between the sides. Were he picking on merit Ten Hag would probably select the majority of City’s bench ahead of his own first choice picks.
Ten Hag teased the finest performance this season from himself with his post-match address after the final home game against Newcastle. He looked and sounded like a man in control. He spoke with authority and vigour about his team, about the energy and fight they would bring to the FA Cup final. But then talking a good game has always been his forte. Delivering one, not so much.
Allegedly under pressure from the FA, who were bidding to host the 2006 World Cup, United were persuaded to contest the inaugural World Club Championship in Brazil in 2000 rather than defend the FA Cup they won in that historic 1999 treble.
This was the beginning of the downgrading of the old pot, an acknowledgement that seven years after the launch of the Champions League, priorities lay elsewhere.
Winning it meant more to City in the context of the treble. Since they are at Wembley they will not roll over, after all, a double is still something. But when they set out last August it was not the prospect of winning the FA Cup that was getting them out of bed.
City aim higher. For Ten Hag victory would be seen as progress. In truth, 25 years after United skipped their defence, the FA Cup is a second-tier trophy clinging to a prestige past.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/iVZAstN
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