This was a victory that emphasised the playing riches that remain beneath the hierarchical chaos that has lingered at Chelsea.
The prospect of a fifth FA Cup in seven years seems an unlikely garland to a season of poisonous upheaval, but there was a reminder at Stamford Bridge that this has also been a season leavened by some vibrant attacking football, led on this occasion by Eden Hazard’s scampering rapier and given force by Demba Ba’s loping athleticism.
As for United, it seems facetious to suggest the season is pretty much over now, with just a league title left to hoover up, just as it seems unfair to linger on the failings of a team who are 15 points clear at the top of the Premier League. And yet this is a team in transition at a club that has earned the right to expect a little more in the way of attacking imagination.
Just as at times in the league United have resembled a heavyweight boxer with a knockout blow, a granite chin and little in between, so they came unstuck against a Chelsea team of greater creative nuance who were able to conjure a moment of the highest class to win.
It was an afternoon of heavy weather all round, sound-tracked by the taunting of opposing former England centre halves, feisty on the pitch but decided by two moments of pure sporting fantasy.
Demb Ba masterstroke
The only goal came out of nothing: Juan Mata's pass over the top looked to be overcooked but was made into a masterstroke by the balletically raised right leg of Demba Ba. Twelve minutes later came two more decisive touches: Hernandez's header back across goal and Petr Cech's palmed save.
And for all United’s urgency late on there was justice in the match being decided by two of Chelsea’s front four. In the days leading up to this match Chelsea manager Rafael Benitez had pondered his relative lack of strikers and yet Chelsea’s great strength, their overload of attacking talent in midfield, was the deciding factor over two matches, just as here Hazard was a lone beacon of scurrying creativity in a jarringly niggly first half.
It was Hazard who began to turn the tie Chelsea’s way around the hour mark. For United there will be regrets at exiting the FA Cup having fielded such a cautious starting line-up. Phil Jones began in central midfield, presumably to counter the muscular influence of Mikel Jon Obi from the last game. Jones played his part alongside the reliably fine Michael Carrick, right up until United were required to chase the game, at which point they clearly missed the passing ability of Wayne Rooney and the drifting runs of Shinji Kagawa, who was left on the bench.
And so perhaps there is something to be said, after all, for simply hurling a fully stocked shopping trolley of superbly talented footballers on to a pitch and allowing them to get on with it while the management uproots itself every six months. Chelsea’s front four cost €107 million. United’s starting equivalent of Hernandez, Danny Welbeck, Nani and Tom Cleverley cost €27 million, two of them academy products. If there seems a paradox in Chelsea’s triumph – a victory for flair over blue-collar toil, but also for the inanity of billionaire football’s fractured fantasy-spending – then this is just part of the crooked beauty of the game.
Perfect touches
Either way Benitez was able to field his inherited midfield riches in the knowledge they would at some stage create.
For Alex Ferguson the nature of defeat perhaps offers a key as to how this champions-elect team will strengthen.
For Chelsea a semi-final against Manchester City awaits, a moment of rejuvenative dignity for the grand old trophy, and also for a Benitez mini-era that, as the sun came out at the end over a quietly steaming Stamford Bridge, seemed to offer the chance of a late reprieve.
Guardian Service
