Manchester City claimed their second trophy of the season yesterday, beating Manchester United to win the FA Cup – and Erik ten Hag will surely have been green with envy watching Stefan Ortega.
City enjoyed the perfect outcome, ahead of next weekend’s Champions League final with Inter.
Ilkay Gundogan is hitting all the headline today after his brace.
The German came in clutch once again for City for the two volleys he scored.
His first came inside 12 seconds to give City the perfect start.
After Bruno Fernandes had equalised from the penalty spot, Gundogan then struck in the second-half, with Kevin De Bruyne picking him out on the edge of the box from a free-kick.
It was a relatively comfortable afternoon for City.
They stroked the ball around with ease and United offered a very weak press.
The Red Devils did threaten a couple of times in the second-half through Alejandro Garnacho. But it really was an easy game to manage for City, despite there only being one goal in it in the end.
United had difficulty retaining the ball when they got it.
Part of the reason for this was because David De Gea was playing.
We have seen for years now that the Spaniard is not good with his feet, and yesterday was no different.
Statistics (via Sofascore) reveal that he had a 49% pass completion rate, which is very poor.
He often just went long because he and the players in front of him do struggle to play out from the back. And it was easy for City to get the ball back.
Erik ten Hag must have been envious of Man City goalkeeper Stefan Ortega – David De Gea’s distribution is so poor
By stark contrast, City goalkeeper Ortega – who Guardiola was always going to play yesterday – finished the game with 90% pass accuracy.
The German stopper may not be quite as good as Ederson on the ball. But his own range is not too bad at all.
And yesterday, he was picking out some brilliant passes of all types.
He would find his centre-back with ease, but also at times dropped it into Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland perfectly.
When you have a goalkeeper who can play passes like Ortega, and also Ederson of course, it just makes everything so much easier.
ten Hag is looking to get United playing out from the back. But this is just not doable with someone like De Gea between the sticks.
