Man City vs Man United LIVE: FA Cup final result and final score as Kobbie Mainoo goal wins it at Wembley

Erik ten Hag has insisted he has no concerns about his future and has said he will go on a hard-earned holiday on Sunday – after already holding talks with Manchester United’s owners to review what he admitted was a “horrible” season.

The Dutchman has shrugged off questions if Saturday’s FA Cup final will be his final game in charge by revealing he has sat down with the new hierarchy at Old Trafford to discuss what went wrong this year.

“We already did and on Sunday I will go on holiday,” he said. “I think I deserve it.”

Ten Hag is adamant United have improved considerably on his watch, despite recording their lowest-ever Premier League finish, and is looking forward to a break.

The cliché is that footballers take each game as it comes. Kyle Walker isn’t, even though his next match could see him join the club of FA Cup-winning captains. Instead, a man with his eye on history is also already targeting a far greater achievement. “Why can’t we do five in a row?” asked the Manchester City skipper.

No one had won four consecutive English league titles until Pep Guardiola’s team beat West Ham last week. Now another unique feat beckons: there have been some 13 previous doubles of the top-flight crown and the FA Cup, but none in successive seasons. Walker has been part of two double-winning teams in 2018-19 and 2022-23, but he is fuelled by the chance to do something no previous side had ever accomplished.

“The motivation speaks for itself,” he said. “To be the first team to do the double-double, the first team to win four in a row, the first team since Manchester United to do the treble; we keep knocking down these hurdles and this is another that we need to knock down. But it’s against our rivals who live in the same city and are going to want to rain on our parade.”

The historic achievement motivating Kyle Walker at Manchester City:

Kobbie Mainoo is learning about the trappings of fame. “When I try to go to the corner shop I get a bit more attention,” said the breakout star of Manchester United’s season. And if there was something wonderfully down-to-earth about the image, there is also the probability that Mainoo may not be spending too much time at the corner shop too often in the future. He is more likely to be seen in the United and England midfields.

For now, anyway, he has not experienced the downsides of his sudden celebrity, even though his native Stockport is Manchester City territory. “Growing up, everyone around me was a City fan, there were only a few of us who had to fight as United fans,” Mainoo recalled.

Maybe an FA Cup final will come down to a clash of Stockport’s finest, Phil Foden against Mainoo. If the United man is outnumbered in his home town, perhaps the friendly reception he gets there is because of the heart-warming nature of his rise, the old-fashioned idea of a likeable local breaking through. “People ask for pictures,” he said. “It’s nice. I mean, I grew up here, so to take pictures, is the least I can do. I remember being a kid and wanting pictures with players when I was younger.”

Kobbie Mainoo interview:

Andre Onana felt like he fell from being the best goalkeeper in the world during a nightmare, error-ridden start at Manchester United – and has backed misfiring Marcus Rashford to rebound from his own struggles.

Things appeared on the up for the Red Devils as they won the Carabao Cup, finished third in the Premier League and reached the FA Cup final during a promising first campaign under Erik ten Hag.

Onana was among those brought in over the summer to take United onto another level but things have gone awry in an injury-hit season in which they limped home eighth.

The FA Cup final against Manchester City offers the chance to end a disappointing campaign on a high on Saturday, when their goalkeeper is sure to play a key role at the end of a campaign he started so poorly.

By the time the title was confirmed, none of the other 19 Premier League clubs felt like extending public congratulations to Manchester City. There were no “classy touches” on the social media pages. That points to how that world has changed, but also at a tension in the boardrooms that is far more perceptible than any on the pitch. City won all of their last nine games with relative ease.

The Premier League chief executive, Richard Masters, didn’t even attend the decisive title match. He was instead at Arsenal, ensuring this season didn’t end with the competition’s senior figure handing over the trophy to the club they have been investigating for more than five years. Early suggestions from the broadcasters are meanwhile that one of the most watched events of the day was Jurgen Klopp’s farewell, which certainly had more viewers than that trophy lift.

These are unexpectedly fitting endings for the entire 2023-24 season, since there has never been a campaign where it felt like so many of the most important developments were away from the pitch. That investigation into the champions is ongoing, with the Premier League so conscious of “confidentiality” that Masters wouldn’t even confirm the date of its hearing. This was all as two other clubs were punished for breaches of the competition’s financial rules, in Everton and Nottingham Forest, with points totals changing three times.

That created the farcical precedent of the table not necessarily telling the full story at given moments. It’s a situation that can be poisonous for sport, since the basic social contract here is that supporters trust what they’re seeing on the pitch. There was instead constantly some controversy to divert the eyes.

Erik ten Hag says Manchester United must “do everything” to repay the “best fans in the world” by lifting the FA Cup after his club suffered their worst Premier League finish.

The 20-time English champions signed off a dismal top-flight campaign with a 2-0 win at Brighton but finished in eighth place – their lowest final position since coming 13th in the old first division under Sir Alex Ferguson in 1990.

Qualification for Europe next season – and potentially the future of under-fire manager Ten Hag – is now reliant on beating rivals Manchester City in next weekend’s Wembley final.

The two managers preparing their teams for Saturday’s FA Cup final could scarcely be doing so under more polarised circumstances.

With Manchester City enjoying a period of success unprecedented in English football, United are weathering a storm so fierce it may not subside even if they upset the odds and beat their rivals at Wembley.

Here, we look at the contrasting situations of the managers: Who comes out on top, Pep or Ten Hag?

When Marcus Rashford was told that he wouldn’t be in the Euro 2024 squad the day before the announcement, there was no massive fury. There was only an attempt to look at the positives. The feeling around the Manchester United player’s entourage is that he needs a break.

There’s still one big game to come, of course, that could yet serve to make a point. Rashford may need a break, sure, but he will surely be personally motivated enough to show England and Gareth Southgate what they’ll be missing in Saturday’s FA Cup final against Manchester City. Many people might be expecting just one result in that showpiece, but it could yet come down to one man.

The feeling around United is that Rashford is still the player who can pop up with a world-class moment no matter his form, which isn’t necessarily true of those selected ahead of him for England. He did it in his very last match against City, with that brilliant strike from distance that ended up as one of the goals of the season.

There is also the motivation to salvage United’s season but that’s where this almost gets more complicated than trying to beat Pep Guardiola’s side.

Rashford’s most important moment with a shot at redemption:

After a season where Manchester United’s tactical system has been constantly debated, Erik ten Hag doesn’t have the luxury of choice ahead of the final game, which could well be his last game. The Dutch coach has to prepare for underdog football in Saturday’s FA Cup final against Manchester City. This is not one for ideology. Pretty much everyone has to compromise when facing Pep Guardiola, but there’s more to that here.

Maybe the greatest uncertainty about the game is just how much of an underdog United are. It’s difficult to think of a final between two major clubs where there has felt such an extreme chasm. The gap is such that the dynamic of this game is much more akin to the Arsenal-Hull City final of 2014 than even last year’s meeting between the same two Manchester clubs.

It is a feeling only accentuated by how they have both immediately returned to the final, with the same successive pairing happening for only the second time in history, but the gap has grown since. City have only strengthened their hold over the English game, as they also aim for the country’s first ever double-double. That was a feat that not even Sir Alex Ferguson managed. The closest he went was doubles in 1994 and 1996, albeit with two runners-up in between. Guardiola can go way beyond that, by adding the FA Cup to this season’s Premier League, on top of last season’s treble.

Chief Football Writer Miguel Delaney’s big match preview:

England left back Luke Shaw is a major injury doubt ahead of Euro 2024 with Gareth Southgate admitting the Manchester United defender is a “long shot” to be fit for the tournament.

Shaw has been sidelined since February with a muscle injury and his potential absence leaves Southgate facing an injury crisis at left-back, with Ben Chilwell, who is also injured, left out of England’s 33-player training squad.

But Shaw is England’s first choice at left-back and has started there at the past two major tournaments, with Southgate admitting he will give the Manchester United defender every chance to make the tournament.

He is not, of course, available to United today.