The Cup Final
I have written before as have many sportswriters on the sad decline of the FA Cup. Continental footballers grace our game but they do not “get” the cachet of the FA Cup as their major Cup competition domestically does not have similar prestige; there is now so much live football; the Champions League now takes preference and if one of the finalists yesterday was playing in that finial next Saturday they might well field a weakened side: the tinkering of kick off times by the FA: all of this denuded the competition so it is no longer the flagship end of the football season. It needs to serve up a thriller and duly did so.
From the first minute it was a pulsating game. One could not call it a great match as Chelsea were so sterile but it was certainly engagingly entertaining. It will be part of the canon of Cup Final legend as when no hopers Sunderland beat Leeds, Coventry Spurs and Liverpool Wimbledon. Chelsea especially under Mourinho were often Arsenal’s nemesis and the Gunners in are in a dysfunctional state all of which did not bode well against the buoyant Premier champions scenting the double in Antonio Conte’s first season. Yet it was Arsenal whom came out of the traps first and soon imposed themselves. It was Conte whose game management was the weaker. Maybe in his native Cup competition and the Champions League he is more attuned to two leg games. It was Arsenal who had the best player on the pitch in Sanchez. 2-1 did not reflect the play as Arsenal were profligate in missing chances. When Chelsea eventually equalised, within minutes Aaron Ramsey had headed home the winner.
As it’s such a traditional fixture and I cannot bear all those silly betting ads nor do I feel any sport or tv Channel should be in partnership with an industry that is off-shore, oft-fined and promotes an addiction that can and does destroy a human being, I went for the BBC. Guy Mowbray is reliable commentator but I did not enjoy the analysis of Danny Murphy. He adopts an assertive, know-all tone, was slow to analyse key incidents rather relying on the video-replay, did not back up Mowbray and fails my criterion of judging such an analyst, namely if I was sitting next to him would he add value to my spectating ? No. Instead of seeking to explain why Chelsea were so awful he pontificated his prognosis that they out-numbered Arsenal in midfield 5-4 so their supremacy was inevitable.
If Murphy gave a poor performance one person who did emphatically not was Anthony Taylor . He had two significant calls to make. He overruled his assistant for the first Arsenal goal and red carded Victor Moses for simulation. He was right on both but he had to make these without any video support. I certainly thought initially Moses was fouled.
This will be remembered as one of the best Cup Finals but I still cannot see the competiton returning to its glory years.
