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Manchester derbies have a habit of taking place at Wembley these days. It was only 12 months ago that Manchester City and Manchester United faced other in the FA Cup final and the two rivals will meet once more this weekend to fight for the final piece of silverware of the English domestic season. 

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By Graham Ruthven

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City got their hands on the trophy last year and are firm favourites to do so again on Saturday. Pep Guardiola and his players might not be chasing a historic Treble like they were last time, but the Etihad Stadium side are fresh from clinching a record fourth-straight Premier League title. No other English team is as well-practiced at winning big matches.

United, on the other hand, will metaphorically stagger on to the pitch at Wembley after a bruising end to the season which saw Erik ten Hag’s team fall to eighth in the Premier League table. Defeat to Manchester City would see the Old Trafford outfit miss out on continental qualification for the first time in a decade.

Saturday’s game could expose the gulf between City and United once more. The blue side of Manchester have been victories in each of the last three derbies, including last season’s FA Cup final which was much more one-sided than the 2-1 scoreline suggested. The two teams might play in the same league and the same city, but a Manchester United win would represent an upset.

Lisandro Martínez’s recent return to action has improved United’s slim chances. The Argentine has missed much of the campaign through injury and is frequently the only source of aggression in Manchester United’s backline. To stand any chance of keeping the likes of Erling Haaland and Phil Foden at arm’s length, ten Hag’s team need Martínez to be in top form.

Foden has certainly been in top form recently, scoring nine goals in his last nine games including a brace in the final day victory over West Ham that ultimately clinched Manchester City the Premier League title. The 23-year-old has already found the back of the net three times against United this season and will be a threat again at Wembley.

At the Etihad Stadium in March, ten Hag adopted a similar approach to the one that worked more than once for Ole Gunnar Solskjær at the home of United’s closest rivals. Indeed, the Dutchman set up his team to stay deep and hit City on the counter attack – and this saw United take the lead through Marcus Rashford.

Ultimately, City had the quality to play through United over the course of 90 minutes, but ten Hag could re-use this tactical template on Saturday. His options are limited due to the likelihood that United will be picked off if they attempt to go toe-to-toe with the recently crowned Premier League champions.

Right now, the two Manchester clubs find themselves in contrasting situations. Manchester City’s success has been underpinned by a clear and coherent strategy that has been years in the making. Guardiola continually evolves City’s approach to keep things fresh, but the principles of possession football remain the same.

Meanwhile, Manchester United have no principles as a club and a team. Ten Hag has failed to impose a possession-orientated game since arriving from Ajax two summers ago with United also one of the poorest sides defending against the ball. After 18 years of Glazer ownership, there is no part of the Old Trafford club that is functioning well.

Things might finally change with Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS in the door as minority owners, but United face a pivotal summer in their efforts to return to the top of English football. Dan Ashworth has been poached from Newcastle United as the club’s new sporting director with a new technical director and CEO also hired. 

United could be in the market for a new manager too if Saturday’s result goes against ten Hag. While one Manchester club has been forged in the image of their manager, the other is still deciding whether or not they want to hand the reins to someone else. FA Cup glory might not be enough for ten Hag to prove himself. 

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(Images from IMAGO)

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You can follow every game in the FA Cup with FotMob — featuring deep stats coverage, xG, and player ratings. Download the free app here.

Manchester Derby FA Cup finals, it turns out, are rather like Manchester buses. You wait more than a century for one to come along, then two turn up at the same time. Considering the ascent of City in recent years, it’s probably not that surprising that this run should have ended at this time, but what is surprising is just how few true local derbies have ever been played as FA Cup finals.

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By Ian King

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In football’s early days, when there were fewer professional clubs than there are now, there were more of them. West Bromwich Albion and Aston Villa played each other in 1887, 1892 and 1895 (with Villa winning two and Albion the other one), while Nottingham Forest beat Derby County 3-1 in 1898. 

At that time there were 32 teams in the Football League. Within thirty years there were 88, almost three times as many, and the likelihood of two local rivals meeting each other in the Cup Final started to diminish. From time to time something would come close – Manchester City and Bolton Wanderers played each other in 1904 and 1926, while Blackpool beat Bolton Wanderers in 1953. 

But none of these quite scratch the itch of being derby matches. West Brom’s fiercest rivals are Wolves, for example, but they’ve never played each other at Wembley. Inversely, Manchester United and Liverpool have played each other at Wembley in both FA and EFL Cup finals, as have Spurs and Chelsea, but while these are obviously huge grudge matches, they’re not quite local derbies. 

Liverpool and Everton met in the FA Cup finals twice in the 1980s, but under very different circumstances to each other. In 1986 celebration was in the air, with Liverpool having just won the league title and Everton having done so a year earlier. But when they met again in 1989 the occasion was considerably more sombre, a city united in grief following the tragic events which had unfolded at Hillsborough just a few weeks earlier. 

Manchester United and Manchester City not having played each other in an FA Cup final, then, isn’t really a rarity or even that much of a statistical quirk. Spurs and Arsenal have played each other twice at Wembley in FA Cup semi-finals, but have never met in an FA Cup final. The two Sheffield clubs did the same in 1993. Sunderland and Newcastle have never met in an FA Cup final, and neither have Aston Villa and Birmingham City or Portsmouth and Southampton. 

When the two clubs first met in the FA Cup in October 1890 United were still called Newton Heath and City were still called Ardwick. Newton Heath won that match 5-1, but they didn’t beat them again in this competition until a 3-0 win in the Fourth Road in January 1970. This time it would be City’s time to wait for decades. United won the next three in a row, in 1987, 1996 and 2004, all at Old Trafford, and it wouldn’t be until the 2011 semi-final, the clubs’ first ever meeting at Wembley in any form, before beating them again. In January 2013, United beat City at The Etihad, and that takes us up to last year and City’s 2-1 win at Wembley.

The omens for Manchester United appear mixed. They’ve failed to win a cup tie overall against City since 2016, but they have remained a more than occasional thorn in City’s side over the years of oil money dominance, having recorded eight wins against them since the first Premier League title of the modern era at City in 2012. It’s not the record that Manchester United would have wanted from this time period. This remains a club which expects dominance. But it’s better than most other clubs.

This is an FA Cup final that is loaded with symbolism. Manchester United have just completed their league season in 8th place in the Premier League, their lowest final league position since 1990, and only winning this match will get them into Europe for next season. That’s a big deal, when you consider that the last time they failed to qualify for Europe (other than the post-Heysel ban years) was 1981.

The match also matters to Manchester City who, for all the talk of their imperiousness, were beaten in the Champions League by Real Madrid and in the EFL Cup by Newcastle. Sure enough, they won the European Super Cup last summer and the World Club Cup just before Christmas, so it’s hardly as though they’ll be sweeping many cobwebs from their trophy cabinet soon, but they played precisely three games for those two trophies.

Furthermore, this is an opportunity for City to do The Double. United have done it three times, in 1994, 1996 and 1999. Should City win this one, they’ll have done it three times too, on top of last year and 2019. United’s historical successes mean that it could still only be years before City overhauled United’s trophy hauls completely, but bit by bit those records are being chipped away. 

Manchester City have been better than Manchester United this season, but it may just be that the local derby nature of this final will play into United’s hands. Derby matches always offer the possibility of an upset and it is really a reflection of where both clubs are today that United beating City in an FA Cup final would be considered something of one. 

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(Images from IMAGO)

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You can follow every game in the FA Cup with FotMob — featuring deep stats coverage, xG, and player ratings. Download the free app here.