City’s FA Cup exit raises the stakes at Wembley
The last time Arsenal met Manchester City at Wembley, Arsene Wenger savoured the final score, but it was Pep Guardiola who insisted on the final word. The Catalan’s side had just been beaten 2-1 in the FA Cup semi-final thanks to an extra-time Alexis Sanchez goal, leaving him facing up to a trophyless season for the first time in his career.
This was at that point fairly seen as a potentially significant landmark, given all of the debate about Guardiola’s ability to adapt to England. The City boss was stern, however, when questioned about it.
“Next season, we will be stronger,” Guardiola he rather simply asserted, as he sought to dismiss the issue.
That promise has emphatically come true but it is just at the point when they can prove it with the tangible signpost of a trophy that there is some pressure again. Sunday’s League Cup final against Arsenal was supposed to be the first step in a sensational quadruple, but could now see them lose two trophies in a week, after Monday’s FA Cup fifth-round defeat to Wigan Athletic. There would be the real danger of momentum stalling, an aura evaporating, and what could still be a historic season turning into a more underwhelming one even if they are virtually certain to win the title.
Wenger has not been too enamoured with the nature of City’s rise as a club, but he might have some sympathy with Guardiola’s situation in this regard. Back in the spring of 2003-04, just when Arsenal were being talked up as winning a treble, they went out of two competitions in the space of a few days. They still made history by going undefeated in the league to win it, but the whole point does feed into the current debate about the status of domestic cups at this stage in football history.
This is the big thing with the League Cup these days for the big clubs. Winning it is rarely about the trophy in and of itself but about what it means for bigger things.
It’s at this point that Brian Clough’s quote about being “given a shot of something positive that only a trophy – whatever it is – can bring” is predictably brought up. “We’d won something,” the Nottingham Forest great said, referring to the Anglo-Scottish Cup, “and it made all the difference.” But it is worth asking what difference last season’s FA Cup – or any of those last three FA Cups since 2014
– made to Arsenal bar strengthening Wenger’s will to stay in the job. Clough also spoke of how his Forest players found they enjoyed “the taste of champagne” but the more bitter aftertaste never went away at the Emirates. The issues never went away, as this season – and this week – proved.
Then there is the very fact of that Guardiola promise coming true, since they are so much stronger than Arsenal.
A cynic could argue how it perfectly indicates the inherent meaninglessness of such trophies in the modern game for the modern big clubs.
There is something of an ironic historic twist here, though, as Wenger aims for the first League Cup of his career in his third attempt at a final. The first time that he sent a team to this showpiece, in 2007, so much of the talk was along Clough lines. All at Arsenal spoke of how this could be the first big step for a promising young team.
They instead lost to Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea, who were at that point losing their title to Manchester United, and a few months from losing their manager. Chelsea had still developed that kind of grizzled ability to just grind out trophy wins. This is actually something that Wenger has developed, too. After so many trying seasons between 2005 and 2014 when a majority of supporters would argue progress was being made despite the lack of trophies, he is now winning trophies at a point when the majority of supporters have accepted no real progress will ever be made again under him. Wenger has almost developed that Mourinho-like elasticity, the ability to just claim silverware no matter what else has been going in a season.
Through that, Wenger has also ruined some potentially bigger stories: Hull City’s first ever major trophy, Aston Villa’s first major trophy since 1996, a Chelsea double… and now a City treble?
The story of a true football great like Wenger still winning trophies at this stage of his career, still adding sparkle to his record, should not be discounted either.
There is just a purer joy to that, and it feeds into the pure joy of just winning a trophy on a big day out like this, how it just makes a season better. There’s also the evident fact Wenger can still imbue his players with a fire for these days, as last season’s FA Cup proved.
City were still the stronger team then but it meant little on the day.
On this day, that superiority will again mean Guardiola plays his normal Kevin De Bruyne-centred game with a few minor tactical tweaks, putting the onus on Wenger to come up with something. He has alternated his approach against the Catalan’s sides, occasionally going for deeper counter-attacking, but
more often looking to go at them. Maybe that is what is required in a one-off game, a showpiece occasion, especially when City are slightly below the level they’ve shown all season: to seize the day.
If the nature of the teams means the onus is on Arsenal to change their tactics, though, the nature of the week oddly means that there feels a greater onus on City to win.
This would just be a mere nicety for Wenger’s season, especially given the developing meaning of the Europa League, but a main step for City. It is now more important to win, precisely because of a defeat in another competition.
That says a lot about the strength of the League Cup, if not about the strength of either side.