Terrace Talk - Man City: After week of ESL talk, Blues take most quintessentially English prize

Manchester City's Rodri celebrates with the trophy after winning the Carabao Cup. Picture: Adam Davy

The year may have a one in it, but, by the end, the hallowed number turned out this time to represent how many shots on goal Tottenham had managed.

The Carabao Cup, better known to Legacy Fans as the good old "League Cup", has become a threadbare thing in modern times, but it is a competition that is quintessentially English, the cup of the Football League no less, Beleaguered and battered, it represents 61 years of midweek struggles, two-legged semi-finals and an assortment of memories great and desperate. That this year's final of the most homespun of English trophies was an encounter between two of the Disreputable Six brought plenty of puzzled looks as to how we were meant to confront the occasion.

Could we clap or were we to remain chastened? Would excitement at having fans back in a stadium for the first time since the last Carabao final a year ago lead us to crack an inappropriate smile at an inopportune moment?

But football raises the spirits and casts away thoughts of besuited septuagenarians with Spanish accents. A flick from Phil Foden easily trumps three months' worth of Andrea Agnelli's beautiful plans.

How ironic that clubs caught flirting with the pleated frocks and high heeled shoes of Real and Juventus could find themselves just six days later fighting over the belt and braces, buck teeth and crinkled tights of Alan Hardaker's bruised old League Cup.

But how we like crinkled tights at City, even in these days of sheer silk and diamond embroidered suspender belts. We have even developed a taste for Carabao, the drink of humble champions. City remain the only side to have tasted its uniquely sweet elixir.

Manchester City players and staff members celebrate after the win

For all Florentino's bons mots, City's joyful frolicking in this competition has brought the fans as much glee as any European jaunts. With memories of recent final victories over Sunderland, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Aston Villa still fresh in the mind, five wins in the last seven finals bears testament to how seriously they continue to take it all. That it is now six wins out of eight was never in doubt on the pitch, even if it certainly was in the troubled minds of City fans brought up on the crushing inevitability of Cups for Cock-Ups.

With sky blue eyes focussed inevitably on superstition and the dark shroud cast by Ricky Villa's weaving run in 1981 (just because it was 40 years ago doesn't mean we are not still busy picking the scab), many fans were being driven cross-eyed, but ultimately there was no real need to panic. We could all uncross our eyes, our legs and anything else that had got in a tangle. It was to be Aurier, Dier and Winks with their limbs in knots instead. Young Ryan Mason had out-Mourinhoed Jose with his tortoise formation.

Manchester City's Aymeric Laporte (left) scores their side's winning goal late in the game. Picture: Adam Davy

At half-time, with City more dominant than they had been in winning the FA Cup final 6-0 against Watford, the goalless scoreline practically winked at us. Tottenham, in green, would repeat their smash and grab in the same hue in that heart-stopping Champions League quarter-final, when the world came crashing down around our ears. Son would knock in a late winner after City had completed 33 attempts on goal.

But this was different. City looked peculiarly concentrated here, the passing crisp, the chances flowing. With the immaculate Fernandinho sitting deep, Joao Cancelo marauding down the left and Raheem Sterling finding more penetration in 90 minutes than he had managed in the last three months, Tottenham could not gain possession long enough to contemplate some attacks of their own.

Spurs have decent League Cup pedigree too, but they could do nothing to build on that heritage here. Indeed their flirtation with Perez's Grand Plan looked particularly premature, when they had hardly bothered turning up for the little League Cup.

And herein lies a lesson to all would-be football megaliths: Guardiola has insisted on full focus on all trophies since arriving in Manchester. It has yielded four League Cups under the Catalan, as well as a raft of other baubles of supposedly greater worth. Where others' resources force prioritising, City's allow a full tilt on all fronts, big and small. For this magnificent side, it may yet pay off with the grandest prize of all.