We did beat them very comfortably at the Etihaad, but I think it would be unreasonable to say anybody expected us to do the same yesterday. From what I remember of the league game we kind of blitzed them with high intensity pressing, catching them by surprise with our sheer energy and workrate, and we exposed Toure as being nowhere near mobile enough.
Given on this occasion we had played a fairly tight and intense European game on the Thursday with exactly the same eleven players who lined up in the final, it was always going to be unlikely we were going to massively outrun them in the same way. Equally, my guess is that they probably knew what to expect from us in terms of going forward, simply because we play in pretty much exactly the same way every single game. They'll have known for instance that we'd have been looking to press high given the chance, they'd have known they wouldn't have to overly worry about one of our midfielders arriving in the box to score a goal, and they'd have known that if we worked the ball out wide then they could pretty much let us cross it with impunity as we don't have anybody in the team who is going to head it. They'd have known that we wouldn't be looking to hit it long as we don't have anybody who can hold it up or bring others into the game, all that sort of stuff they'd have known. Back in the heady days when we went to Chelsea and City with a "false 9" it was all a bit of the new thing to everyone (me included), but I think most people have got their heads around it now (no pun intended).
I suppose that when you consider that in the eight games which preceeded yesterday the fact that we'd scored 9 goals in total (and SIX of them were against Villa) it's not that surprising that we didn't go to Wembley and bash up Man City again. Other teams and managers aren't stupid untimately, and generally speaking you only catch them on the hop once.
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