Up for the Cup!

As Patrick the Holloway Blue said to me before the match, it didn't matter if we won or not, because we've already had our final - against the Rags at Wembley. But on the day, there were few fears that a disappointing Stoke side would manage to get anything out of us. I was a little surprised that they rolled over quite as easily as they did, but that's the way it goes sometimes. At last, that fucking banner can come down and the Project can move on to bigger and better things. The way the Gooners are playing at the moment could well mean that we won't even have to play one of the qualifying rounds in the Champions League, but it's Stoke again tonight before anything else, and then the awful emptiness of the summer months without footy beckons.

Every voice I've heard in the game - and not just Alan Green - has said that staging Premier League games on the same day as the FA Cup final was an inexcusable travesty, and so it was. But that didn't stop those dickheads from doing it, giving the Rags an unnecessary fillip before our kick-off at Wembley. No doubt Rupe and his boys are pissed off that they didn't have a piece of the action (What's the beef? They've got every other sodding game on the planet - football or not, ffs!) and greased a few chairmen's palms in order to take the lustre off the grand old competition. Next season will be just the same, you'll see. Another nail in the coffin.

And yet this is not the time for being curmudgeonly.

City are FA Cup winners, 2011 and it feels good. The Spurs supporting mailman at one of my offices is well within his rights to opine that City are the worst team in the top 4, but it won't make their season any better. Sorry, John.

Slightly premature I know, but here are my nominations (one for each position on the field) for our player of the season this year:

Hart
Kompany
De Jong

Tevez

Overall winner has to be Kompany, partly because of Tevez and his nonsense about transfer requests and the like. Honourable mention, for entertainment value, goes to Balo, and another to Zaba, who has given his all for the cause.

Players I wouldn't mind seeing the back of:

Lescott
Kolarov
Barry

I still reckon Dzeko will come good and look forward to the signing of Alves among others for next season.