Pep Guardiola has his first silverware in English football and Manchester City has completed the first stage of a treble. In the end, victory over Arsenal in Sunday’s League Cup final was comprehensive as Arsene Wenger’s side self-destructed as it does so often when it really matters.
Yet there was a sense, as there has been a few times recently, of City not quite being at its best. Perhaps the issue is one of expectation, that it was so good in October and November that brilliance is expected as standard. Certainly by the time City fans began cheering them passing around Arsenal in the final 20 minutes, there was no doubting the team’s dominance. Yet in the first half, City was as flat as it has probably been this season and Arsenal, but for one moment of weakness, could claim to have matched them.
Guardiola speaks always of the importance of process and, last season at least, he seemed to despair of the fixation on results but perhaps here he will allow himself simply to enjoy the success. After Monday’s FA Cup defeat at Wigan Athletic of League One, it was important that defeat in a second Cup competition didn’t cause the season to deflate. Perhaps that’s a negative way to look at it, and no Cup should ever be spurned, but the heights that City hit in the run-up to Christmas mean this should only be a staging post to much greater success.
The full repercussions of that slip-up soon became apparent after half-time as City upped its game to a remarkable degree. De Bruyne and Sane swapped flanks but it wasn’t just that. There was more energy, more zip, more invention and Arsenal was unable for long periods to get out of its half. It was still, though, a moment of sloppiness that gifted City its second, Bernardo Silva left unmarked as a corner was pulled back to him. His shot was slightly scuffed, but Vincent Kompany turned it in.
For City, this ought to be little more than a prologue to greatness. Under Guardiola it should have far greater peaks to scale. The league title, surely, will follow. The question then is whether it can win the Champions League as well. It’s a measure of just how good it is that it can seem, by the club’s own standards, so uninspired and yet still beat the team sixth in the league 3-0.
