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Manchester City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma watched and admired as his teammates played the ball up the pitch
Gvardiol to O'Reilly to Foden to Gonzalez to Doku to Gonzalez to Cherki to Gonzalez to Nunes to Silva to Nunes to Cherki to Dias to Cherki to Nunes to Cherki to Gonzalez to Gvardiol to Dias, to Nunes to Haaland. One nil to Manchester City.
Pep Guardiola is understandably pleased about the improvements that have been made to his side this season. New players such as Nico Gonzalez and Rayan Cherki have helped, as has a reduction in injuries and the deeper role of Phil Foden.
If last season saw the City boss lamenting the difference between his team and the clubs that played 'modern football' such as Bournemouth, Brighton and Newcastle, after his 1000th game in management he has done enough to catch up with his team sitting four points off the top of the Premier League table.
"We can play in different ways now," he said after the 3-0 win over Liverpool. "I think we are more unpredictable in the way we attack and the way we defend, and that is good that the opponents maybe don't know what we are going to do."
City's tactics certainly confused Arne Slot, with the Liverpool manager admitting after their defeat that they were not prepared for the home team making the midfield so congested. "We were constantly coming up two players short in the middle because Doku and O’Reilly gave us a lot of problems," he said.
That may be a novel approach for the season, but City's overall philosophy hasn't changed and the first goal against Liverpool showed it. Josko Gvardiol started it off as he slid in to send the ball in the direction of Nico O'Reilly near their own corner-flag.
Seventy-three seconds later, the ball had just been touched by the 10th City player after 19 passes of the same move and Erling Haaland was wheeling away to celebrate his header dropping into the net. A vintage Guardiola goal to mark a landmark occasion.
The same was true last week against Bournemouth, if not quite as good. Both the second and the third goals in that game involved nine City players - quite revealing for the second in particular given it looked as simple as Rayan Cherki flicking the ball through for Haaland to run onto.
City are different this season and have adapted to changes in the modern game, yet their DNA is still unmistakably the Guardiola genes that have been so apparent from Barcelona to Bayern and then to the Etihad.
Given there were still questions early this season about whether the coach would be able to bottle that up again, ten players against Liverpool did that while Gianluigi Donnarumma happily watched on.
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