The walkers gave the game away. Not Kyle, not this time, because he wasn't on the field. But the strollers were there and they're easy to spot when you watch the footage of a meltdown.
We go back to Tuesday night, two minutes to play. The bars overheat. Manchester City were 3-0 up, now it's 3-2, and Feyenoord's Anis Hadj-Moussa has just pinged a ball over the top.
When it leaves his left boot, City have six men in their own half, Feyenoord four, but the difference is that none of the latter are taking a nap. They're on the hunt.
Igor Paixao is the key figure here. He doesn't look at the ball, he looks at where it will land, and he has the jump for them all, especially Ederson, who has stormed out of his goal and into a race he will never win. A soft header off the bounce takes Paixao past the keeper, but a little wide to the right, giving the defenders a small chance to get back.
Let's freeze the frame and think about how they failed to use it. What we're looking at is the kind of image that has Pep Guardiola scratching his head and face and peeling himself off to a new level of vulnerability, because when Paixao scans the City box looking for his next move, he has four unmarked teammates in there with him. They all sprinted to keep up.
What we won't see are many blueshirts – only Rico Lewis and Jahmai Simpson-Pusey have made a serious attempt to track the robbers, Ederson is out of position and no one has picked up David Hancko, who has run the half. across the length of the field and is free to head the equalizer through a cross from Paixao.
So one question: where on earth are the other three who were in City's half when Hadj-Moussa sent the ball long? Here we return to the subject of our walkers – Josko Gvardiol, James McAtee, Matheus Nunes.
They were all there to get involved in a retrieval operation, or at least try, and none of them did much more than walk or jog before it was far too late. Where Feyenoord could call on courageous people in times of need, Guardiola only had the courage.
And now he has a crisis.
A powerful word: crisis. And of course everything is relative. But City is City, Guardiola is Guardiola, and City or Guardiola have never gone six games without a win. His players don't walk, they wave. When they have a hard time, they get even harder. When pressure presses on their scalp, they grow larger. And now they aren't anymore.
But try it, guys, it's only Liverpool at Anfield. Just know that if running was a mistake against Feyenoord, running in front of the tank would have sharper consequences.
Or maybe it won't work out that way. Maybe this is the day the fever dream ends and City wakes up. When an eight-point deficit becomes five and a season ignites. When one of the most expensively assembled and dominant teams in all of sport remembers who they were meant to be. Perhaps they will fight a little harder for Guardiola's sake. Who in their right mind would argue with that?
But in the here and now it is extraordinary to think about what we have seen from this side lately. Is it the creeping age profile of Guardiola's squad? Injuries? The irreplaceable qualities of Rodri and the wear and tear of Kevin De Bruyne? Is it the unconscious weight of those financial burdens and the prospect, however remote, that this could end with the return of a few medals?
It could be a combination of all these things, and City don't need to appeal to Lord David Pannick to argue for leeway. We can give it freely. Great teams can have bad runs and all empires eventually shrink. That's sports.
But what about those walkers? That was different – it looked less like fatigue and more like indifference and a group not sufficiently rocked by five consecutive defeats. Less willing to commit to a service. It seemed that way when Gvardiol jogged behind Evanilson as Bournemouth took a 2-0 lead a few weeks ago. And Walker, when he staggered behind James Maddison as Tottenham built up the same scoreline. For the 3-0 in that match, Pedro Porro ran 30 yards or more from the ball before someone strolled in his direction.
Injuries will sap a side's intensity, and City have had little of it, but so has a lack of appetite, and the performances are ringing the bell.
That reminds me of the other club in Manchester and the delicate ways in which ecosystems can be destabilized.
Remember 2001? Sir Alex Ferguson does. Over all his years, that was his biggest regret, due to his decision to announce he would be leaving United at the end of the 1-2002 season.
As he has stated a number of times, that was a colossal mistake: the level dropped. They fell subtly but surely. And you could see it in their walkers. Some of the fear, the need to impress every day, was gone. After winning a third title in three years in the summer of 2001, beating Arsenal by 10 points, they finished third in the summer of 2002, 10 points behind the same club. Between October 20 and November and December 8, they had sleepwalked into a run of six defeats in eight games in the league and cup.
So I wonder what kind of contract Guardiola has just signed, and all those months when no one seemed to know if he would be gone anytime soon, including City's recruitment team. I also wonder if he will one day realize that some of this current sluggishness was caused as much by his own indecisiveness as by injuries and other factors.
If City beat Liverpool on Sunday we will probably park this discussion. If they somehow win the title, we'll forget this ever happened. But they still have a lot to do, a lot to fix, and it's really time to pick up the pace.
DeChambeau may be even smarter than he thinks
Bryson DeChambeau always called himself a genius and I was never fully convinced. But he attracted 80 million clicks to his social media channels when he attempted to land a hole in one with a sand wedge across his glass-fronted mansion into a leafy backyard.
He missed 133 times and scored the 134th on the 16th day of his attempt.
When I compare the audience he reached to the average of 2.8 million people who tuned into majors and PGA Tour events during the 2024 season, I'm inclined to admit he may even be smarter than he thinks.
The Benn saga raises more questions about UKAD
When Conor Benn's doping saga began in these pages two years ago, a prominent figure in the boxing world asked me whether UK Anti-Doping would have the willpower and balls to see a messy, complicated case through to the end.
We still don't know if Benn ever provided any scientific evidence as to how a banned substance entered his system and caused two failed tests. But we do know that UKAD has waived their right to a final appeal against a verdict to clear him of all charges.
Among other questions raised by the case, that investigation into UKAD feels as relevant now as it did then.
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