Great expectations but wasn’t a classic
PERHAPS it was greedy to expect a third classic between these two teams this season.
It takes two to tango and part three of a trilogy, which could yet turn into a tetralogy, was too onesided to live up to its predecessors. For all the late tremors induced by Bernardo Silva’s goal as the clock ticked down, Liverpool were comfortably the better side. City did not show up until the race was all but run.
A glass should be raised on Merseyside, amid the celebrations at a first FA Cup final appearance in a decade, to Diego Simeone and his Atletico Madrid blackguards.
The experience of being taken to the limit and beyond in the Spanish capital in midweek persuaded Pep Guardiola to send out a drastically overhauled team, one which, for all City’s resources and a hastilyarranged training run at Millwall on Friday, proved no match for Liverpool’s A-list ensemble.
By the time they belatedly got their act together, City were chasing a footballing miracle.
Jurgen Klopp was able to unleash his rested firstchoicers after mothballing them for the Champions League and, fresh and ferocious, they applied a red blowtorch to City in the first half.
Guardiola’s men were so ragged and off the pace it looked like the English champions had just got out of bed. The defence was hesitant, the midfield overrun. Phil Foden, relieved of the swimming cap he modelled in Madrid, will rarely play as poorly. Even Guardiola looked less sharp than usual – his white tee shirt hanging out beneath his sweater.
If one moment summed up City – and Liverpool – in that defining half, it was Sadio Mane’s 17th-minute goal.
It was a howler from City goalkeeper Zack Steffen all right, dawdling on a back pass from John Stones, but the desire Mane showed to close him down as Mo Salah shut down the escape route personified Liverpool too.
City were better in the second half – they couldn’t have been much worse – but the deficit they had left themselves was too much to claw back against a side of Liverpool’s quality.
They had the collector’s item of a Jack Grealish goal but it wasn’t much of a day to be a City fan. The intended minute’s silence in memory of the Hillsborough victims before kick-off was sullied by a section
of City fans that brought a wall of boos from the Reds’ end and persuaded referee Michael Oliver to call time on it early.
How much of an effect will this result have on the title race and the Champions League? Precisely zero.
Liverpool will have left Wembley feeling good. They are in another cup final and the quadruple remains on. But Klopp will know in his heart of hearts the dice was loaded in his side’s favour.
They took full advantage.