The Warm-Up: The ageless Zlatan, Kane stakes his latest claim

Jose Mourinho’s team did what his teams usually do in cup finals – this was his 11th win from 13 attempts – but this wasn’t one from the Jose Mourinho textbook. With 38 minutes gone at Wembley, neutrals might have been reaching for their TV guides (let’s boldly assume people still have the Radio Times lying around these days) to see what Sunday tea-time film they could watch for the 13th time. Mourinho’s teams – including his latest work in progress, on recent form – don’t look back from there.

But Southampton (who, while the outsiders, were far from plucky underdogs) refused to let United dominate. Manolo Gabbiadini, denied previously by an offside flag, tapped in to halve the deficit before half-time. Soon after the resumption, he span beautifully to half-volley into the corner.

It was now anyone’s final. Oriol Romeu hit the post with a header, Shane Long’s fresh legs were summoned from the bench, and an enthralling extra time loomed. But that’s where United’s trump card dealt itself. We’ll deal with him in more detail below…

The popular perception of this Chelsea side – and several others before them – is that they always get it done. This latest safe negotiation of the 26th hurdle of the race to recapture their meekly-surrendered Premier League title reinforced not just that idea, but also that Antonio Conte and his peerlessly settled team are the best equipped to deal with any kind of opposition.

Chelsea are only occasionally stretched out of their shape, rarely outplayed, and almost never outrun. Swansea – even if they arrived at Stamford Bridge with more February points than the league leaders – weren’t likely to do any of those things, but Paul Clement had at least managed to mould them into something approaching a functioning top-flight operation.

Expecting the visitors to assume a defence-first approach, ceding possession around the halfway line (Chelsea enjoyed 66% of the ball), Conte wisely switched out one of his midfield destroyers – the often rather ponderous Nemanja Matic – and brought in Cesc Fabregas, for whom packed defences are an opportunity rather than a challenge. And his 300th Premier League appearance was a decent showcase of what he’s all about.

His opening goal – an appropriately Lampardesque conclusion to a neat move on the edge of the box, while the Chelsea legend watched on from the stands – should have seen a dominant Chelsea kick on for a comfortable three points. Swansea’s sucker punch before half time ensured it wasn’t a straightforward afternoon, but Fabregas wasn’t panicking – he laid on Pedro’s 72nd-minute restoration of the lead, and in doing so drew level with Lampard on 102 assists.

Matic was summoned from the bench to protect the lead – although not in place of the Spaniard, instead forming the most complementary midfield three one could imagine – but Chelsea still had another goal in them. Similarly, it doesn’t feel like Fabregas is quite done yet either.

It’s unclear how much more he can do to start being taken seriously as an elite-level striker, but three hat-tricks in 2017 before March, which helped propel him beyond a century of career goals before his 24th birthday, suggest he might need to be in the conversation now.

There’s something straightforwardly Hasselbainkian about his readiness to shoot from anywhere, as soon as the ball is set for him, but no elite striker can get away with being too one-dimensional. As a lone forager (when he’s not being supported by Spurs’ fluid squadron of attacking support acts) he’s tireless and impossible to shake off. As a technician, he’s underrated – his contribution to Dele Alli’s goal against Stoke is testament to that part of his repertoire.

Back to the numbers, though. Without those seven weeks on the sidelines with an ankle injury, Kane would surely be away and clear at the top of the Premier League scoring charts. He’s beyond the 20-goal mark in all competitions for the third season running – only his third as a top-flight regular, too – and there seems no reason to suggest that entering his mid-20s will dim that energy or take the edge of that directness.

Kane was an exceptional young emerging talent. Now, there isn’t an English striker within a country mile of him. His next chapter is to establish himself among the European goalscoring colossi.

A feat of goalscoring greatness from the Nigerian Premier League to brighten up your Monday morning, first. As if playing for a team called Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries FC isn’t enough to write home about, winger Sikiru Olatunbosun….well, he did this:

That’s the sublime covered, now for the mildly ridiculous. Goalline technology is great, isn’t it? Goalkeepers are especially grateful for its certainty in situations like this, where PSV goalkeeper Jeroen Zoet stopped a goalbound Feyenoord header right on his line…only to become the architect of his own downfall:

Not convinced? The technology said it all, right down to the millimetre:

It seems a bit misleading to be focusing on his age, because Zlatan Ibrahimovic is like no other 35-year-old striker we’ve seen before. That he’s amassed more goals after the age of 30 than the seasons previous to it isn’t just about looking after himself. While other strikers lose a vital part of their armoury in their advancing years – lightning pace, most commonly – Ibrahimovic’s game hasn’t had to do a great deal of concession to Father Time.

The ball is still as struck cleanly as ever (as demonstrated by his free-kick, but there was even a majesty to his aimless upfield hoofing in the dying minutes), he remains an imposing and mobile no.9 and, when all else fails, a 6ft 5in striker will always get on the end of something. That something was an 87th-minute cross, and the header was a formality. Manchester United are far from a perfect team, and far from an irresistible collection of individuals either, but Ibrahimovic will always deliver. Age, in his case, really is just a number.

There was something quietly pathetic about Stoke’s first-half showing at White Hart Lane. Generally, they had the air of a mid-table team starting to think about where their summer holiday would be this year. Specifically, it was the snarling futility of Charlie Adam and the baffling refusal to mark Tottenham’s secret weapon Harry Whatshisname at a corner.

Having emerged from the Tony Pulis era threatening to create a new, more vibrant identity for themselves, Stoke are now going in the vague direction of nowhere.

A week in which Modern Football was forced to look itself in the mirror needed a definitive final word to bring all the nuts and bolts together. The Guardian’s Daniel Taylor provides it.

Such is the short memory of football sometimes, allied with the eminent forgettability of the League Cup, that some gems get a bit buried. Here’s as graceful a Wembley goal as you’ll ever belatedly see:

Craig Shakespeare’s defending champions Leicester City (now there’s half a dozen words to admire) welcome Liverpool to the King Power stadium. There will be an overwhelming sense of something missing, though – this will be less of a football match, more of a wake.