Martin Samuel’s Cup final report:
Alan Pardew was under no illusions about who won the Cup for Manchester United — it wasn’t louis van Gaal, and it wasn’t even Jesse lingard.
In Pardew’s mind, the game changed in the 81st minute when wayne rooney won the ball from wilfried Zaha on the left and began a crossfield run that would take him, in various ways, past another five Crystal Palace players to the far right side of the penalty area.
There, he delivered a deep chip that he made look five times simpler than it was to United’s targetman, Marouane Fellaini, and after he chested the ball down, Juan Mata volleyed it in.
‘rooney is a genius player and has been all his career,’ said Pardew, admiration mixed with the resignation of the vanquished. ‘Today he produced a moment that in my view probably won them the Fa Cup. Forget about the winning goal.’
It is hard to do that, lingard’s first-time shot after 111 minutes being such a cracker — but it is doubtful he would have got the opportunity to unleash it without rooney’s determination.
It wasn’t just the skill of his run, which was immense, gliding, shimmying, feinting, but the sheer will involved. It was as if rooney, alone, decided he was not going to lose to Crystal Palace on Cup final day and set his mind on a winning outcome. It was a moment of pure football, like watching the best kid in the playground or on the school team suddenly come alive.
Palace had defended superbly until that point when, suddenly, no- one could get near rooney. It was an intervention made all the more significant by the fact he had not had the perfect game until that point.
He had given the ball away in key areas on several occasions — one error causing the ferocious attempt at retrieval that came perilously close to giving away a penalty for a foul on Zaha — and Palace were thwarting his more obvious attempts to switch the play.
Yet he never stops wanting it, never stops backing his talent. ‘watch him, he’s the best of the best of the best,’ roy Hodgson told one doubter as United toiled this season.
and rooney’s influence in the game’s pivotal moment will only further convince him that, whatever he saw in england’s match with Turkey, rooney is the player he cannot do without in France.
One sensed the United players know his worth, too. when the final whistle blew it was rooney they all swarmed towards, his magnetism about more than just the captain’s armband.
‘You look at Manchester United,’ said Pardew. ‘anthony Martial we handled really well today, we hardly gave him any moments, which we had worked on in training. we knew rooney would switch the play and we’d worked on that, too — but what we didn’t see coming perhaps was a drive of that quality.
‘I do think that we would have seen the game out if it wasn’t for the moment that he produced. with all the things we did, he hardly ever got in the box, so it was just that moment when he took it upon himself. He drew everybody to him and then the cross...it really was a very difficult skill, to get it to the back post from where he was. The two goals United have come up with — that’s the level we’re at now.
‘The second goal, lingard’s hit, that was amazing, too. It just flashed in when I was on the sideline but seeing it again on video, I don’t think you are going to get many better than that.’
Hodgson will content himself with the thought the scorer of such a brilliant winner is not considered good enough to command a place in his european Championship squad — yet any warm thoughts about england’s attacking options will have been undermined by a disturbing display from Chris Smalling at centre back.
On three occasions, Smalling was spectacularly turned by Palace players, culminating in a red card when his desperation to delay Yannick Bolasie’s charge towards goal led to him clasping his ankles rugby-style.
Zaha left him trailing again four minutes into stoppage time, and Connor wickham was away in the first half only to be hauled back by referee Mark Clattenburg, who disappointingly missed a good advantage. One presumes there may even be some better players than wickham waiting for Smalling in France this summer.
Yet he is the best of it, for england, no doubt. He is the pick of Hodgson’s meagre pool of three centre halves, and a player the manager holds in high regard.
Yet any opposing coach watching the Fa Cup final — and we can be certain that Chris Coleman of wales was — will have left as buoyed by Smalling’s frailty as Hodgson was by rooney’s creation of the goal.
It served as a microcosm of the summer: all of england’s hopes and fears encapsulated.
‘I need to learn you can’t just always go and win the ball,’ said Smalling. as the bedrock of england’s defence, that is a very steep learning curve, and one that needs to be rather speedily ascended.