FA Cup Final

[Rex]

Finally it looks like the tattoo will not be so embarrassing.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Man Citeh "deserved" winners on the day.(irrelevantly but alledgedly their match winner on a "deserved" £220k per week)

In fact an all round good day for Manchester................. and surrey

However, Man (or men) of the match for me was (were) Sorenson (and without a doubt for sheer tenacity and running off the injuries Pennant)

[Tony Le Mesmer]

lol at Citeh waiting 35 years for a trophy and still being upstaged by United

[Rex]

Not really. I'm happy to see some other club finally in the mix.

[Royal With Cheese]

lol at Citeh waiting 35 years for a trophy and still being upstaged by United

But, to be fair to them, the FA Cup final should never have been scheduled during the dometic season - FOR WHATEVER REASON.

The FA Cup has become only slightly more important than finishing 5th in the EPL.

[Seal]

Not sure how many times this can be said but this year is a unique situation. UEFA rules mean no matches can be played at Wembley within 2 weeks of the Champions League Final, so what else could they do? Play it in June?

It's a shame but such is life. Sure City fans don't give a sh1t that Sunderland - Wolves was on the same day. I had a chat to a few last night when out and about in London and they definitely didn't seem to fussed about it.

[Stranded]

I'm sure they didn't. It is just a shame they couldn't just play all the PL games today. They play the final weekends fixtures all on the Sunday so you wouldn't have thought it would be a problem scheduling them all for today - half the games are already anyway.

[paultheroyal]

lol at Citeh waiting 35 years for a trophy and still being upstaged by United

If anything the other way round with main sports item being the FA Cup on main news then followed by Man Utd.

[Svlad Cjelli]

lol at Citeh waiting 35 years for a trophy and still being upstaged by United

If anything the other way round with main sports item being the FA Cup on main news then followed by Man Utd.

That's how "news" works -something that only happens every 35 years is far more remarkable and newsworthy than something that happens again and again and again.

[TheMaraudingDog]

Back pages have a 50/50 split with United being on the top

[PlasticRoyale]

It'd be nice if they could sort out which competitions are more important.

Utd are effectively handicapped by being successful resulting in more games

[Jerry St Clair]

Not sure how many times this can be said but this year is a unique situation. UEFA rules mean no matches can be played at Wembley within 2 weeks of the Champions League Final, so what else could they do? Play it in June?

But the FA, by implication, is admitting that the financial rewards of hosting the Champions League final are more important that it's flagship cup competition. The Wembley debt is a millstone round the FA's neck that will mean it is destined to be a corporate whore for years to come, however many "initiatives" it puts in place to revitalise the competition.

[Stranded]

Not sure I agree with all of that - the CL was always going to be played at Wembley at some point. The sticking point has been the move of the CL final to a Saturday. If it had stayed on Weds nights then they could have hosted that on the 25th May and kept the cup final on the 28th making it the last game of the season.

[Seal]

Exactly. The whole business model for Wembley is based around maximising occupancy and usage. It's just one of those unfortunate things: Wembley pitched to host the final, won, and then UEFA tell them they've changed the schedule so the final is now going to be on Saturdays.

Once point I would take is that it would have been nice if all games were moved the Sunday. However that was never going to happen - and again this is not the FA's fault - it would reduce the number of games SKY and the PL could show live over the course of the weekend, and they were never going to approve that, regardless of how much the FA pleaded.

So it's just one of those things. Yes the FA makes mistakes, but panning them for every single thing that is wrong in English football is not fair and usually just plain wrong.

[Svlad Cjelli]

Exactly. The whole business model for Wembley is based around maximising occupancy and usage. It's just one of those unfortunate things: Wembley pitched to host the final, won, and then UEFA tell them they've changed the schedule so the final is now going to be on Saturdays.

Once point I would take is that it would have been nice if all games were moved the Sunday. However that was never going to happen - and again this is not the FA's fault - it would reduce the number of games SKY and the PL could show live over the course of the weekend, and they were never going to approve that, regardless of how much the FA pleaded.

So it's just one of those things. Yes the FA makes mistakes, but panning them for every single thing that is wrong in English football is not fair and usually just plain wrong.

They have also shafted the Football League with this. The Fl have a contract of booking Wembley for that bank holiday weekend - and they've been told they now have to play the L1 & L2 play-offs at Old Trafford that weekend. They're also worried about having time to setup Wembley for the Championship play-off final once it gets handed back by UEFA - it normally takes a good couple of days to setup for the play-offs, and the FL will get a day - assuming UEFA all clear out on time.

[Seal]

Yep know all about that...npower are one of our clients...

They'll get it ready in time but various parties will be doing all nighters for the cause.

Old Trafford isn't actually too bad a venue for the League 1 & 2 playoff finals, as it's very unlikely they'd sell out Wembley anyway. So yes they lose a little of the 'magic of Wembley', but Old Trafford is a pretty impressive back up option.

All in all it's a relatively unique set of circumstances.

[T.R.O.L.I.]

As was pointed out on 606 on Saturday - the Manchester Evening News will have a bit of a dilemma on Monday when it comes to choosing their front / back covers.