At the Amex departing managers have rarely derailed the process. Given his track record, you suspect the chairman Tony Bloom and his team of stats crunchers will have already identified the next five Brighton managers. At Manchester United, where nobody could accuse the Glazer regime of smart forward planning, Ten Hag remains in charge. Just. He was given a noisy ovation by the United followers at the end, as they sang of their anticipation of Wembley next Saturday. But how many of them seriously believe he has a chance of derailing City’s march on another double might make up the title of Lee Mack’s quiz show: the 1 per cent club.
This was, though, a marginally more coherent and organised performance from Ten Hag’s side than many this season. Since that woeful 4-0 defeat at Crystal Palace, the United manager has dispensed with his favoured 4-3-3 pattern which has faltered so often, flooding his midfield and employing Bruno Fernandes as a false number nine. It didn’t bring much in the way of excitement here, it required goalline clearances from Casemiro and Lisandro Martinez, but at least it kept De Zerbi’s ever ambitious team largely at bay.
And apart from offering a modicum of defensive cover, the main consequence of the tactic has been the incentive it has given Rasmus Hojlund. Clearly driven by the snub of being dropped, when he arrived from the bench here he offered the kind of vim and vigour entirely absent from United’s lacklustre effort to that point. After Diogo Dalot had opened the scoring, the Dane scored a lovely solo goal, an effort oozing the kind of confidence and determination that might prove very useful at Wembley. Though when asked whether his performance might have been good enough to secure a place in the Cup final starting line up, Ten Hag insisted: “You need not only eleven players, you need a bench as well. Before adding that his selection issues were “not a dilemma – I think it’s a luxury problem.”