The 20-time English champions signed off a dismal top-flight campaign with a 2-0 win at Brighton but finished in eighth place – their lowest final position since coming 13th in the old first division under Sir Alex Ferguson in 1990.

Qualification for Europe next season – and potentially the future of under-fire manager Ten Hag – is now reliant on beating rivals Manchester City in next weekend’s Wembley final.

The two managers preparing their teams for Saturday’s FA Cup final could scarcely be doing so under more polarised circumstances.

With Manchester City enjoying a period of success unprecedented in English football, United are weathering a storm so fierce it may not subside even if they upset the odds and beat their rivals at Wembley.

Here, we look at the contrasting situations of the managers: Who comes out on top, Pep or Ten Hag?

There’s still one big game to come, of course, that could yet serve to make a point. Rashford may need a break, sure, but he will surely be personally motivated enough to show England and Gareth Southgate what they’ll be missing in Saturday’s FA Cup final against Manchester City. Many people might be expecting just one result in that showpiece, but it could yet come down to one man.

The feeling around United is that Rashford is still the player who can pop up with a world-class moment no matter his form, which isn’t necessarily true of those selected ahead of him for England. He did it in his very last match against City, with that brilliant strike from distance that ended up as one of the goals of the season.

There is also the motivation to salvage United’s season but that’s where this almost gets more complicated than trying to beat Pep Guardiola’s side.

Rashford’s most important moment with a shot at redemption:

Maybe the greatest uncertainty about the game is just how much of an underdog United are. It’s difficult to think of a final between two major clubs where there has felt such an extreme chasm. The gap is such that the dynamic of this game is much more akin to the Arsenal-Hull City final of 2014 than even last year’s meeting between the same two Manchester clubs.

It is a feeling only accentuated by how they have both immediately returned to the final, with the same successive pairing happening for only the second time in history, but the gap has grown since. City have only strengthened their hold over the English game, as they also aim for the country’s first ever double-double. That was a feat that not even Sir Alex Ferguson managed. The closest he went was doubles in 1994 and 1996, albeit with two runners-up in between. Guardiola can go way beyond that, by adding the FA Cup to this season’s Premier League, on top of last season’s treble.

Chief Football Writer Miguel Delaney’s big match preview:

But Shaw is England’s first choice at left-back and has started there at the past two major tournaments, with Southgate admitting he will give the Manchester United defender every chance to make the tournament.

He is not, of course, available to United today.

Kyle Walker does not believe many teams would be capable of matching Manchester City’s historic haul of four successive Premier League titles.

City pipped Arsenal to yet another league crown on Sunday to set a new record, and could add the FA Cup to their trophy collection this weekend as they look to complete back-to-back doubles.

Asked if Pep Guardiola’s men get the credit they deserve, 33-year-old Walker told Sky Sports: “I don’t think we’re not appreciated, I think we are and we get the plaudits that we rightly deserve.

“But I think to do what we’ve done year in, year out, I don’t think many teams would be able to do that, especially in this Premier League.”

More from Walker:

City, fresh from celebrating their historic fourth successive Premier League title, face a United side sore from finishing way back in eighth place at Wembley on Saturday.

Yet Guardiola is taking nothing for granted.

An eye-watering injury list has been compounded by underperforming players and poor decision-making in what has been a campaign to forget for all connected with the Old Trafford club.

United bowed out of Europe before Christmas and stumbled home in eighth place – their lowest finish of the Premier League era – to heap pressure on Ten Hag as Ineos consider how to take the club back to the top.

“Every season you review it and then we will see where we are in the project and the things that we have to change,” said Ten Hag. For many, the question of change revolves around the dugout.

If nothing else, the Dutchman is good at message discipline. “I am just focusing on this game as I do on every game,” he said, shrugging off talk that, like Louis van Gaal, he could bid farewell to United in an FA Cup final, even if it is won. Yet there are times when his chosen messages seem retrofitted.

Richard Jolly’s feature on what might be the Man United boss’ final game in charge:

United recorded their lowest-ever Premier League finish by coming eighth, while crashing out of the Champions League in the group stage, and could lose a second consecutive FA Cup final to City.

But Guardiola, who knows Ten Hag from their time together at Bayern Munich, objected to the culture where managers are branded failures if they don’t claim silverware by arguing that only one team can win but that others can still do well.