Manchester United Ends Trophy Drought

I have not posted anything about Manchester United aside from the calamitous start to the season. Since then my thoughts have been limited to Twitter with short tweets on how I felt the match went. Finally, after 6 years, Manchester United have a trophy to celebrate. In that period, we have lost 2 Cup finals, the FA Cup in 2017-18 under Jose Mourinho and the UEFA Europa League in 2020-21 under Ole Gunnar Solksjaer.  

The opponents in the final brought back memories of the historic FA Cup final win in 1999 when we clinched our second trophy on the way to the Treble. I felt at that time, the real final was played in the semi-final against Arsenal and it was just a formality against Newcastle. My favourite memory of a Wembley meeting against Newcastle came in the 1996 Charity Shield when United hammered our then-title rivals 4-0. Newcastle was at that time a very strong team. Going into this final against Newcastle, it didn't feel like a formality because I felt this Newcastle team was stronger than the one in 99 but it was weaker than their 1995-97 vintage. 

My thoughts also went towards the last League Cup final we played in 2017 when we played against a supposedly weaker opponent, Southampton. We didn't play particularly well that day and looked jittery but won it eventually. In this final, we didn't produce our best performance but were effective and clinical going forward. That turned out to be the difference and despite not playing particularly well, we could have scored more had we taken better decisions on the counter-attack. The difference between the team now and the one in 2017 is the resilience, determination and mentality shown to not concede and to absorb the pressure Newcastle put on us. The importance of players like Raphael Varane and Casemiro to this team on occasions like this came to the fore in the final. 

The League Cup for many years in the past has been treated as a second-rate tournament, Sir Alex Ferguson would normally field reserves and youngsters in the earlier rounds. However, it has also been a catalyst for periods of dominance. When United won the League Cup for the first time in its history in 1992, they were building a winning mentality having won the FA Cup in 1990, European Cup Winners Cup in 1991 and the UEFA Super Cup in 1992. When they won it in 2006, it heralded the start of a new era of dominance. However, we need to avoid the mistakes we made when we won it in 2017. That season, United won three trophies - the Community Shield, League Cup and the UEFA Europa League. We couldn't build on it the season after that and that proved to be a false dawn. 

The progress under Erik ten Hag has been positive but he needs to ensure that the club keeps progressing and wins major trophies soon. He needs to be backed on the transfer market as well and that is linked to the club's ownership which needs to be resolved as soon as possible. 

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