Guardiola only has himself to blame for worst season

It was a display of brutal ruthlessness from Manchester City.

- RICHARD JOLLY AT WEMBLEY

Not, admittedly, in an FA Cup final when they had 58 touches inside the Crystal Palace box, 23 shots and one penalty - yet scored no goals. But beforehand. Two of their own disappeared from the squad, Pep Guardiola’s cull removing Rico Lewis and James McAtee from the teamsheet.

Academy products were instead spared parts in another of the off-days that have pockmarked Guardiola’s worst season as a manager. It may end up being bookended by trophies, by the Community Shield and the Club World Cup, but City lacked the clinical streak their manager demonstrated. On a day when few of Guardiola’s decisions worked out, a manager who has fashioned many a historic feat instead played a part in one for Crystal Palace, their belated first major trophy, some 120 years after they were formed.

It was both an extraordinary anomaly and part of a wider trend. Few have won more anywhere than Guardiola. Indeed, few have had as much to savour here as a man who won European Cups as player and manager at Wembley. However, increasingly, few have lost as many times at England’s national stadium. City have reached the last four of the FA Cup in a record seven successive seasons. Yet Guardiola has lost three Wembley semi-finals and now two back-to-back finals. It is scarcely the annual ritual he was hoping for.

There was a point when Guardiola’s record in finals, forged at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, was almost immaculate. Not any more: is that in itself a sign his powers are waning a little? Or merely that this team, whose decline may have been foreshadowed in last year’s FA Cup loss to Manchester United, is inferior to his others?