While Manchester City deservedly lifted the trophy following their commanding performance, there was certainly an element of controversy over Laporte’s winning goal.
The Sky Blues had us pegged back for much of the first half, but when Lucas Moura picked the ball up midway inside our half on 24 minutes and looked to launch a counter, Laporte’s trip halted his progress.
It seemed a certain yellow card but referee Paul Tierney chose not to book the City defender. There was a touch of confusion as the TV coverage flashed up that he had indeed been booked, but that wasn’t the case.
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So when the same two players were involved in an almost identical situation just before half-time, the yellow card awarded to Laporte this time might well have been his second and seen him dismissed. Instead, he was able to continue and ended up being the match-winner.
‘Once we reached half-time with the game still goalless, we felt we had a chance to push on in the second period and had spells of possession in dangerous area, without managing to carve out that one chance we needed. City goalkeeper Steffen was forced into just the one save, a decent one too as he had to be alert to tip away Lo Celso’s effort early in the second half and from the resulting corner, the ball just wouldn’t drop to one of our green shirts as it bounced around in the area.
The longer the game went on, the more it was going to be one moment from either side which was going to win the trophy, but unfortunately that moment fell to City and Laporte.