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Manchester City look to have settled on a first-choice full-back combination and the identity of the players is something of a surprise.
While one Manchester City full-back was busy shackling Mohamed Salah, the other was having an impact at the opposite end of the pitch. Nico O'Reilly took another step forward as a left-back against Salah and Matheus Nunes continued his own renaissance with a superb assist for Erling Haaland.
This isn't what anyone expected to say at the start of the season, but are the Portuguese midfielder and the English midfielder now City's first-choice full-backs? Their record together would certainly suggest so.
When Nunes and O'Reilly start together in the full-back positions, City have won 11 games in a row. In 16 starts together in total, they have 14 wins, a goalless draw at Old Trafford and a meaningless Carabao Cup defeat at Tottenham.
It is seven out of seven this season and both players are in excellent form. Nunes looks to have seen off a challenge from Rico Lewis at right-back, although Abdukodir Khusanov was staking his own claim for that role before picking up an injury in September.
The departure of Kyle Walker left Guardiola searching for a solution in that position and Nunes looks like being the unlikely winner. That was a change from left-back being City's usual problem position, with the £31million signing of Rayan Ait-Nouri from Wolves this summer putting an end to that.
But Ait-Nouri's early injury has reopened the door to O'Reilly and the 20-year-old academy graduate has barged his way through it. He is now in the England squad as a left-back and is outstanding every week for City. He has the ability to make others play better and the route back for Ait-Nouri looks a difficult one.
The combination of the two is, in some ways, typical of Guardiola. He used to regularly use midfielders in full-back roles, inverting them into the middle of the pitch to add more control. Then, in the treble-winning season, he often used central defenders there, with power and physicality essential.
In Nunes and O'Reilly, he has a bit of both. The two are midfielders by nature, but they are also strong and athletic players and tall for full-backs. They could arguably tick both boxes, with the technicality of a midfielder and the power of a defender.
Nunes has improved defensively this season. It has been made clear he has no future in midfield in this team, but Guardiola has regularly repeated his belief that the Portugal international has what it takes to be a right-back, and that is starting to come to fruition.
O'Reilly's future could potentially still lie in midfield. He came on centrally in the early weeks of the season, but has been excellent at left-back again and his performance on Sunday was impressive.
"Salah has been a nightmare for many years with his speed," said Guardiola. "We said to Nico he had to be aggressive, otherwise every time Mo had the ball he was helped with one or two central defenders and Jeremy and Bernardo and Phil.
"The team worked incredibly and defensively they were really good, especially in the first half. Nico made a step up because you have to prove how you behave against the best wingers. it is no bad example to do that against Salah."
Plenty of pieces are starting to fall into shape for this City side, and amongst them are two unlikely candidates making the full-back positions their own.
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