Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City side completed their first sweep of English men’s football trophies by routing Watford 6-0 in the FA Cup final at the Wembley stadium on Saturday evening.
Raheem Sterling scored a hat trick with David Silva, Kevin De Bruyne and Gabriel Jesus also netting in the humiliation of Watford.
Victory for Pep Guardiola’s side came a week after the Premier League trophy was retained to join the League Cup and Community Shield already in City’s possession.
“What a season,” City captain Vincent Kompany said. “What a tremendous club.”
But the unprecedented achievement by football’s costliest squad comes against the backdrop of investigations into City’s compliance into football’s spending rules that could lead to the Abu Dhabi-owned team being banned from the Champions League.
It wasn’t until 2011 that Man City ended a 35-year trophy drought by winning the FA Cup.
🇪🇸 Pep Guardiola as manager:
🏟 582 Games
🏆 27 Trophies3 🏆🇪🇸 La Liga
3 🏆🇪🇸 Supercopa
2 🏆🇪🇸 Copa del Rey
1 🏆🇪🇸 Tercera3 🏆🇩🇪 Bundesliga
2 🏆🇩🇪 DFB-Pokal2 🏆🏴 PL
2 🏆🏴 League Cup
1 🏆🏴 FA CupRelated News 3 🏆🌎 CW Cup
3 🏆🇪🇺 Super Cup
2 🏆🇪🇺 UCL🤯 A trophy won every 22 games. pic.twitter.com/lMV7wNNreF
— SPORF (@Sporf) May 18, 2019
Manchester City is now the undisputed power of English football – a status it claimed from neighbour Manchester United.
“It just shows what the manager’s building here,” Sterling said. “At the start of the season he said, ‘Let’s try and get the mentality right and go for the Premier League again,’ and we’ve done that again, exceptionally well.
“It’s a credit to all the boys, being mentally switched on throughout the season which has been long with the World Cup as well. Everyone’s been focused and on their A game the whole way through.”
Over $1billion has been spent on transfer fees alone since 2008 when Sheikh Mansour bought Manchester City, a team that was more accustomed to playing in lower leagues than lifting trophies.
Anthony Nlebem
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