Manchester City crush Watford 6-0 to complete treble in style

Manchester City crushed Watford 6-0 in the FA Cup final on Saturday to become the first team to win the English treble of league championship and both domestic cups in the same season.

The victory matched the competition’s record final win — set when Bury beat Derby County 116 years ago — and was the perfect end to an amazing season for unarguably one of the finest teams to grace the long history of the English game.

Coming after they retained the Premier League title last week and won the League Cup in a penalty shootout over Chelsea, City’s sixth FA Cup triumph made them the eighth team to win the prized League and FA Cup double and first since Chelsea in 2010.

They also scored 169 goals in 61 games this season, beating their own previous best of 156.

It was an incredible final for us and we have finished an incredible year,” City manager Pep Guardiola said.

To all the people at the club a big congratulations, especially the players because they are the reason why we have won these titles.

City led 2-0 at halftime through David Silva and Sterling and effectively sealed the deal when Kevin de Bruyne came off the bench to smash in the third after 61 minutes.

Gabriel Jesus slotted the fourth before Sterling, who was brought up in Wembley, took centre stage with two more in the last 10 minutes to become the first player to score an FA Cup final hat-trick since Stan Mortensen in 1953 when Blackpool beat Bolton 4-3 in the “Matthews Final”.

The one blip is their failure to again make even the semi-finals of the Champions League – something that will nag at manager Pep Guardiola throughout the summer but ensure he and his team come back full of vigour in August.

Also celebrating on Saturday were Wolverhampton Wanderers, who will now qualify for the Europa league via their seventh-place finish in the Premier League.