For his final trick before disappearing behind Watford’s curtain, Walter Mazzarri put three goalkeepers in his squad. Poor bloke could have fielded all of them from the start and his side still would have taken an almighty hiding.
This was Manchester City in their element, standing on a flat track and bullying the life out of little people. Malevolent, spiteful, all the compassion of a swarm of angry wasps – they were all those things and more, this side that has fallen painfully short in the big games but often massacres opponents in the smaller ones.
And that is what this was, irrespective of Pep Guardiola’s pre-match claims that it was a final.