Wembley way the route to high five

CIAO BELLO — now wipe that pasta sauce from your mouth and down that Perroni, for we have pies, beer ‘n’ silverware to look forward to at Wembley on Sunday. And after a decade of badmouthing the League Cup, to the extent that many of my crew barely recognised it as a first-class tournament anymore, I confess to a feeling of mild anticipation as the Final hoves into view.

On Saturday night, some of us will be having our annual shindig to mark yet another trophyless year for Manchester City — their 33rd ticks up on the 28th. Some of you will feel a boney tremor of age there — yes, it really is a third of a century since Dennis Tueart’s bicycle kick flew into the Newcastle net and into every Red’s craw. It is thus rather pleasing that we shall then be heading straight off to London next morning, still mildly inebriated, with a view to picking up that very trophy once again. And with the chucklesome subtext: “yes, Blues, and we don’t even particularly care for it either.”

There are three reasons for our partial volte-face. Firstly, this could be stage two of a Quintuple; back in 1994, we were actually gutted to lose this final because it robbed us of stage one of a potential Treble. How absurd it’d be to lose this, the easiest of the five, whilst clinching the other four.

Secondly, it’s against Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham. I cannot tell you how much I loathe Harry. No, really, I can’t: a phalanx of lawyers have made that quite plain to me. Add to him their cockney fan base and those twin arrogant horrors on the pitch, Robbie Keane and David Bentley, and you have all the incentive you need.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it’s one we want for The Kids. I fervently hope Fergie keeps his promise and plays as many of these young firebrands who’ve taken us so far as possible — hats off to Evans, Gibson, Welbeck, the da Silva twins and any of the other short-pant boys lucky enough to get the nod.

Gibson has particularly raised eyebrows, a hefty Irish lad full of talent and fight, who clearly drank deep from the cockiness well as a kid; he was cheerfully calling the boss ‘Fergie’ in the press this week. If he doesn’t cut that out soon, Alex will be cutting something off Gibson himself, I suspect. Welbeck is reputed to have a certain swagger about him too and was reported by one tabloid to have been dropped to the reserves for an over-arrogant goal celebration last week.

Once upon a time such matters would have had me fulminating and drawing unflattering comparisons with bygone eras of modesty and duty but I, like Fergie, have come to realise this is all almost unavoidably par for the course these days. Certainly the boss tolerates attitude and behaviour now that would never have passed muster in the key formative 1989-91 period, as Ryan Giggs has sheepishly testified to before now.

Fergie doesn’t get enough credit for this tolerance — that a man of his background and advanced age can still be ‘down with the kids’ sufficiently to understand that morals and modes have changed in just a decade is remarkable. When you hear lovely little tales like Patrice Evra playing the latest French disco hit on his ghetto blaster and teaching Fergie to sing along (in French!), you cannot help but smile and be grateful for the old man’s expansive personality.

Contrast that with the preening martinets and humourless obsessives in charge of so many Premier League teams — Fergie may occasionally infuriate and even disgrace but would we swap him for any of that bunch of headset-wielding dullards? Of course not.

Back in 1990/91, the run to the League Cup final was an utter thriller, and was the first time Fergie’s team truly clicked (1990’s FA Cup was grim semi-competent attrition in comparison). We certainly wanted the cup back then; and finally, now, we truly want it again.

Though not, admittedly, as much as Mourinho’s scalp…