THE trade-off for all of Jose Mourinho’s humdrum magnolia-coloured football is supposed to be a splash of silver at the season’s end.
Not this time, though.
And when there are no trophies to show for the bang-average football at a club as rich and ambitious as Manchester United, the shelf life isn’t long.
Of course, winning an FA Cup final didn’t save Louis van Gaal from the sack two years ago.
And losing one is not going to get Mourinho axed just now.
But this is a manager who could take over the Harlem Globetrotters and tell them to cut out the party tricks.
Mourinho is currently making a wealth of world-class talent look seriously ordinary.
Alexis Sanchez and Paul Pogba are two Galactico signings who have shrunk.
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Mourinho had been scoffing at the idea of entertaining football on the eve of the Cup final.
And United duly played a full part in serving up a stink bomb of an opening 45 minutes.
It was so shocking that if Fulham owner Shahid Khan buys Wembley Stadium from the FA, he’ll have to think about getting the place fumigated.
Mourinho delivered a half-time monstering which at least brought some sort of response from his moribund troops.
But it was never enough and so Mourinho’s men have finished the season as runners-up in both major domestic competitions — deserving to win neither.
Throw in a horribly unambitious Champions League defeat against a highly leaky Sevilla side and this campaign will go down as a definite failure, despite a highest Premier League finish in the post-Ferguson era.
While Eden Hazard and N’Golo Kante looked like the Footballers of the Year they are, United’s big guns could not raise it on the big stage.
It did not help that Romelu Lukaku was not deemed fit enough to start and his replacement, Marcus Rashford, looked so horribly short of confidence, especially in the first half.
Chelsea enjoyed their day out in the sun and collected the FA Cup as a leaving gift to Antonio Conte.
In two seasons at Stamford Bridge, Conte has collected a league title and this FA Cup.
Mourinho, with a far bigger net spend, has last season’s Europa League and EFL Cup.
Despite the fact every club has played here against Tottenham this season and both of these sides came through semi-finals last month, there was still a distinctive buzz about Cup final day in the sunshine.
Wembley Way was rammed a full two hours before kick-off — perhaps with those simply desperate to avoid watching the Royal Wedding on the box.
There were vast banners at either end paying tribute to the late Ray Wilkins — a hero of both clubs, product of Chelsea, FA Cup final goalscorer for United and one of the most decent gents the football fraternity has ever known.
As an occasion, the FA Cup final is not as busted a flush as many assume.
The pomp and ceremony of Abide With Me, pre-match line-ups and God Save The Queen remained.
Cup legend Ronnie Radford was on the pitch at half-time to present a giant-killing award to Wigan, the club who denied Manchester City a domestic Treble.
But one tradition which was sadly lacking before kick-off was Mourinho and Conte spitting insults at one another.
The two warring managers had called off their entertainingly childish feud before the sides met at Old Trafford in February and there had been no resumption of hostilities in the build-up.
Perhaps with Chelsea boss Conte so certain to be leaving England, Mourinho does not see any need to prolong the enmity.
It’s rarely personal with the Portuguese, even his spats tend to be tactical.
Nobody was expecting fireworks between two sides who had failed to set the Premier League ablaze.
And the quality of some of the passing was abject in a first half which lived down to all expectations — it was lumpen, scruffy, disjointed and lacking in stardust, save for one man.
Hazard had served warning when a lax Phil Jones pass allowed Chelsea to break and the little Belgian jinked his way into the United box, forcing David De Gea to save with his legs at the near post.
Soon after, Jones dropped another conker and, in the 22nd minute, Chelsea were in front.
Hazard got goal-side of United’s England centre-half who, as he clumsily tried to win the ball, managed only to upend the Chelsea No 10.
Referee Michael Oliver got his first big call spot-on.
Nervelessly, Hazard waited for all the unnecessary grumbling and faffing, then netted from 12 yards.
He was the only bright spark on the pitch through those first 45 minutes — and, sadly, England are going to have to deal with him in their World Cup Group G match next month.
All around him was a sea of mundanity.
Sanchez, who is supposed to do for United what Hazard does for Chelsea, was as bad as anybody.
You do not get a lot for £505,000 a week these days.
In fact you barely even seem to get a shift out of the Chilean.
Mourinho virtually sprinted down the tunnel at half-time — a man with walls to strip.
The verbal grenades seemed to do some sort of good.
Rashford, who had been utterly anonymous in the first half, forced a couple of saves from Thibaut Courtois and a few rockets seemed to have been inserted up various United players.
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Sanchez had an effort correctly ruled out for offside following a lengthy VAR delay when he stabbed home a rebound following an excellent Courtois save.
But it wasn’t enough.
As Conte jitterbugged his way around his technical area in injury-time, Mourinho could only look at his watch, the way Sir Alex Ferguson once did.
Out on the pitch, there was no such resemblance to the glory days.
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