The Warm-Up: Europa League joy for Manchester United – just don't call it a treble

The moral of the story, kids, is that tanking the Premier League does pay off. For Manchester United and Jose Mourinho rescued their season at the last at the Friends Arena in Stockholm, beating a hugely underwhelming Ajax side to win the Europa League, earning a spot in next season’s Champions League in the process.

It was a convincing win. United bullied their opponents (many of whom, to be fair, are midway through puberty), defended stoutly and made the most of their chances. Paul Pogba’s deflected effort settled the nerves early on and when Henrikh Mkhitaryan – probably the competition’s best player – pounced to make it 2-0 just after the interval, there was no way back for the Dutch side.

Mourinho, widely panned for his approach in the league, is due praise. United were compact, organised and oozed big-game maturity. But those tempted to paint this as some tactical masterclass would do well to note that Ajax basically just didn’t turn up. The kids in red and white could barely string two passes together in the opening 30 minutes, and didn’t improve much thereafter.

Still, you can only beat what’s in front of you, and it was genuinely nice to see Mourinho smile again after 528 days of self-imposed misery. His embrace of his son at full-time was touching, too.

So, the big question: when all is said and done, is United’s final haul for the season – sixth place, the League Cup and the Europa League – preferable to fourth and no trophies? Of course it is. Anyone who says otherwise has faulty wiring. Mourinho is entitled to reflect on a job well done – and a gamble well negotiated.

Just don’t try to convince The Warm-Up that raising three fingers and claiming you’ve won some kind of treble because you’re counting the Community Shield is anything less than (hilarious) idiocy.

Monday night’s tragedy in Manchester was always going to cast a long shadow over events in Sweden. United fans will have flown to Stockholm with heavy hearts and the pre-match atmosphere appeared slightly sombre by the usual standard of these things.

But the principle message, expressed in a hundred banners in the stands and no doubt echoed back home, was one of unity: this is a city that stands uncowed, refusing to bow to fear.

Football is only a game, but the communion of a big crowd, all travelling under the name of the city, was a powerful representation of that defiance. The pre-match roar made the heart beat faster for all the right reasons.

“The manager told us the only thing we could do was to win this for them,” said Ander Herrera. “That’s what we’ve done. It’s just a football game, it’s just a trophy, but if we can help support them with this one per cent it’s enough for us.”

A brief Europa League interlude, now, to bring you the latest on Marco Silva, football’s premier one-man transfer saga. After attracting interest from pretty much everyone under the sun over the last week, the Portuguese appears to be edging closer to agreeing a deal at Crystal Palace.

It would be a power move from Steve Parish, replacing Sam Allardyce with the man whose appointment at Hull City provoked so much crowing from the hoary old guardians of the English managerial flame. Pints of port all round if the Eagles pull it off.

It was another red-letter evening for Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s in-house myth-cultivation department. The crocked Swede did not even feature in the match, yet still ended up stealing the scene with his post-match antics.

There were trademark aphorisms:

There were excellent poses with the trophy:

Mainly, though, there was this:

The Frenchman has had more than his fair share of criticism this term, but socked it to the doubters with an emphatic performance in Stockholm. There was a healthy dollop of luck involved in his goal, sure, but Pogba’s strength and composure in tight spots was vital as United asserted their dominance.

The midfielder also struck the right tone in his post-match comments (“We won for Manchester and the country”) and even made time for a spot of jiving, much to the delight of the travelling fans. What a guy.

Further proof, as if it were needed, that Gary used up all the verbal-cogency genes in the bloodline…

99% Invisible is a very, very good podcast about design and its real-world implications. This week’s episode has a football slant: it’s about Brazil’s decision, in the wake of the 1950 World Cup debacle, to ditch their white jerseys in favour of the canary-yellow ones we now know and love.

There’s not much in the way of fixtures, unless a post-season friendly between Ghana vs Benin floats your boat. Which… no, never mind.

But we can expect plenty by way of Manchester United reaction, with the squad due to fly back from Stockholm, trophy in tow. Perhaps, by the time they land, Mourinho will have convinced himself he’s won the quadruple courtesy of that medal he won at the staff table tennis tournament back in January.